


Iridere

by Falcolmreynolds



Category: Original Work
Genre: Aliens, F/M, Fantasy, Gen, Giant Animals, Many - Freeform, Nonbinary Character, Queer Character, Sci-fantasy, Trans Character, VERY MANY, Worldbuilding, and, and crimes., and swordfighting, i hope you like both, scifi, space, there's a lot here tbh
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-26
Updated: 2019-09-26
Packaged: 2020-10-28 23:48:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 37
Words: 152,794
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20787068
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Falcolmreynolds/pseuds/Falcolmreynolds
Summary: The stories of several people across a vast universe meet and intertwine, and none of them make it away from this with their lives unchanged.Contains swordfighting, giant prehistoric animals, monarchies, spaceflight, aliens, deadly hazards, and more.





	1. Conquering King: Chain of Command

_Long live the Revolution._

The time for passive obedience was long gone. The time for violence was nearly over. Soon, the revolution would triumph.

No more would the people accept the rule of a senile, decrepit king with no concern for his country. No more would they stand by as the king turned a blind eye to his people’s plights and left them to starve while all around their enemies clawed at their borders, ripping away farmlands and claiming them for their own.

No more would the people bow their heads to one who claimed to have the favor of God when God had so clearly abandoned him.

Micah sat on a stool and leaned on the hilt of his sword, looking down the hill at the scene below: soldiers, bustling around, setting up tents.

His soldiers.

They hadn’t always been his. In fact, just months ago, he would have been organizing an ambush on a camp like this, preparing to raid their supplies and set fire to anything that couldn’t be stolen. But now…

Micah controlled the army. It was his to command – not the king’s.

The revolution was nearly over. The King had nothing left- he’d lost the support of his people, he’d lost his allies, he’d lost his army- and the rebels had it all. And they were within marching distance of the palace. They’d have the king’s head in days, Micah surmised, smiling gently.

Or, rather: _He_ would have the King’s head.

Micah knew his status. He wasn’t a Ringleader- his skill was in combat, not politics- but he was a charismatic general and his swordsmanship was unmatched. And he was blessed.

It was highly likely that, given the opportunity, the Ringleaders would give the King a chance to defeat them in single combat. He could fight, or he could send a champion to fight, and whoever they were, they would fall beneath Micah’s blade. He would win.

He always won.

“Micah!”

He turned his head sideways to look to the right, resting his cheek on top of his hands. Someone was striding up the hill- Tor, one of Micah’s oldest friends, who had followed him into the rebellion. Perhaps the closest of Micah’s friends. “Tor,” Micah said, granting the newcomer half a smile. “Nice to see you.”

Tor composed himself, shifting his sword on his hip. “Ahem,” he managed, after a moment. “The Ringleaders say they want to see you. They’re not in a hurry, but don’t keep them waiting. You know how they are.” He paused and relaxed his stance a little. “I think it’s important… do you know what it’s about?”

Micah contemplated this for a moment. No doubt they wanted his affirmation about the single combat, although he’d volunteer for it whether they wanted him to or not. He did not answer Tor’s question. “Alright.” He lifted his head off his hands and used the sword to push himself into a standing position. Tor backed up out of the entryway to the tent to let him pass.

Micah lazily swung his sword around to slip it through the fastenings on his belt and let it hang at his side while he walked. Tor, disappointed, followed behind him, probably hoping to get some information about what was happening in the battle by eavesdropping on this impromptu meeting. Other soldiers watched as he passed through the camp- he was almost a legend amongst them, he knew.

The Ringleaders were waiting for him in another tent on the top of a nearby hill overlooking the camp. There were five of them, standing around a table that he’d seen many times before, often covered in maps and battle plans. Now it was empty save for a single map of the land surrounding Kathaka, the city proper, and the palace.

“Micah,” said the Ringleader in the center, a stout woman with short-cropped black hair and ebony skin. “Thank you for coming.”

He got directly to the point. No reason to mince his words with formalities when he already knew why he was here. “Greetings.” He paused for a moment, looking between the Ringleaders. “You want me to fight the king.”

“Yes,” the Ringleader on the far right affirmed, a tall and rather lanky man who specialized in advanced technology, the kind that was giving the rebels their edge over the king’s forces. Or had been, when the king’s forces were fighting them. “We’re going to offer him a chance at single combat to defeat us and you will fight as our champion.”

Micah nodded. “And would you prefer that the King himself fight me, or choose his own champion?”

“Hopefully he will choose to fight you. He knows his war is lost; if we have judged him correctly, he will try at least to die with honor on the field rather than be executed for his crimes.” The first Ringleader paused, narrowing her eyes. “If not, we have confidence that you can overcome whoever he chooses to fight in his stead.”

“I too possess this confidence,” Micah murmured, resting one hand on his sword hilt. It wasn’t an unfounded belief, either – he’d won every single combat he’d ever fought. He did not think it was cause for arrogance. “When will this take place?”

“Two days’ time.”

That came as a surprise. Micah raised one eyebrow – if they marched on the city in two days, the entire army and the Ringleaders, that wouldn’t give them time to send a courier to ask about the challenge. “You would not send a message to the King, first?”

“No,” the short woman said, shaking her head. “There is no point. We could only threaten outright war on his city, but we are already at war. He knows this. Assuming a position wherein we must query him instead of demanding his cooperation or surrender would only endanger our chances of success.”

It was disappointing, because the attack on the city meant that civilians within could be hurt and Micah would lose soldiers, but he understood. He nodded slowly, dipping his head in respect to his leaders. “Of course.”

The Ringleader second from the right cleared her throat. “Micah Cyraxis,” she said, catching Micah’s attention with her use of his full name.

“Yes?”

“You do realize you are as much a Ringleader as any of us, do you not?”

“Perhaps,” he mused. He’d wondered if they would ask him to become a Ringleader, though he hadn’t expected them to actually do it. He wasn’t sure he wanted to. “I bring success to our raids and victory to our battles. But I am only a fighter. I have not the mind of a speaker or an inventor.” He let his gaze rest on the Ringleaders with these qualities as he said this.

“You do,” the fourth Ringleader insisted. She fixed her dark eyes on Micah’s. “Join us, Micah.”

Micah decided that this was not the time to argue. Besides, being part of the Ringleaders could be useful. “If you wish me to,” he said after a moment, “then I shall, though the title is… honorary.”

“Good.” The leaders exchanged glances amongst themselves, agreeing on the promotion. The short woman looked him in the eye, standing straighter. “Then you will lead our armies.”

Micah frowned, perplexed. He had before; this wasn’t new. Where were they going with this?

“You will take the vanguard to the palace.”

_Ah. _Micah bowed his head again, legitimately honored now. It seemed that the Ringleaders wanted him to show himself at the forefront of their gathered army. An intimidation tactic, and it would likely work – he was known to the King’s forces. “It would be my pleasure,” he growled.

“Just don’t die,” the last Ringleader said, his mouth quirking up in a half-smile. Micah caught amusement and a bit of concern on his lined face.

“I will try my hardest to avoid that,” Micah replied, smiling back. But there was no real need to try – he knew that he could not be felled in battle. Arrows flew past him, sword strikes missed or bounced away. Traps triggered too early, or too late, and his mount was always nimble and could not be tripped.

No, Micah was a warrior, and he was a warrior who never lost, and never failed.

Micah Cyraxis was blessed by God. He would not be harmed.

He would be victorious.


	2. The Amelia: Amelia Rising

“Navigator Raleigh,” the commander called. “Navigator!”

The navigator in question pulled her head out of the clouds and focused on her commander and the controls in front of her. “Ah!... yes, Commander?”

Charis, arms folded, sighed. “Vari told me to call for you, because he’s too busy to do it himself.” She glared down into the bridge pit, at the pilot, who was out of sight from Raleigh’s station. “We’re disengaging, Navigator. Ready up.”

Raleigh glanced over towards the cockpit where the _Amelia_’s pilot was humming to himself, prepping the ship’s launch. “Right, ma’am. Where are we going?”

“We’re headed for Rigel.”

“Rigel?” A triple star, some distance away.

The commander nodded. “Rigel.”

“…what’s at Rigel, if you don’t mind me asking?”

“Iridere,” Commander Charis stated, staring at the moveable star map splayed across the interior front viewscreen of the ship. “We’re going to Iridere.”

“Um, I don’t remember where that is. Or what it’s like.” Raleigh knew the name rang a bell in her memory, but couldn’t remember why it was important.

“Very large, seven worlds in Rings, central Core?”

“…_oh!_” Now she remembered. Iridere, the seven-ringed artificial construction at Rigel. It was thousands of years old, and no one knew who had built it; humans had settled it, and the other races thrived amongst the varied environments on the Rings. And travel to the third Ring was strictly forbidden unless it was sanctioned by the overall police force and the local Watch.

“Mmmhm.” Charis folded her arms, eyes still fixed on the map. “We’re to do a full Ring run starting Iridere’s Core and heading all the way out to Xovan. Some client wants a biosurvey of Wenyrev-“

“Since when do we do biosurveys?” Raleigh couldn’t help herself and spoke up again, internally cringing as she interrupted the commander.

Charis didn’t seem to mind. “Since we have the equipment for them, which we do. That was the install that took all of last week. And we have cargo that I’ve agreed to pick up and deliver to Xovan and Ferolus. Traders’ Fleet authority says it’s been waiting on a ship for weeks, and they want us to take it.” She paused. “Never mind that we’re a _security_ ship. We’re the only one free to go there.”

It was surprising to actually interact with the commander this much. Raleigh had only been on a few runs in the _Amelia_, and had never really gotten to talk to Charis… but then again, hardly anyone voluntarily chatted with her; she was intimidating.

Raleigh opened her mouth to respond to the commander’s musings, but was distracted by a notification that popped up on her console: Vari was waiting on her and one other station to report green for launch.

“Pardon me, ma’am, but…”

“Of course,” Charis said, holding her hands up. She pushed off the smooth structuring of the bridge pit and left, heading into the rest of the ship. Raleigh reported her station in ready and waited while the last secondary did and Vari primed the engines.

The ship trembled slightly, and Raleigh felt a spasm of excitement. She loved setting out. She felt the docking clamps let go and retract, felt the _Amelia_ back gently out of the dock. The ship, under Vari’s careful control, swiveled around, put her nose to the sky, and fired her engines.

It didn’t matter that the outside momentum didn’t really affect the _Amelia_’s interior. Raleigh still half-believed that she could feel the speed pressing her sideways into her seat, that she could feel the ship straining forwards and trembling with excitement to be again in the blue sky and the black expanse above, rocketing through the stars trailing blue light and particle residue. Involuntarily she grinned, staring fiercely at her system displays.

“Make sure the atmospheric blocker is functioning on the left side, Raleigh,” came Vari’s voice through the comms unit hooked onto Raleigh’s ear. The blocker was a modification on shielding that helped the ship cut through air with less resistance. She checked it- it was working fine.

“Blocker’s good.”

“Great.”

The _Amelia_ sailed over the mountains and forests of Sykra, gaining altitude as they did so until the mountains were blotches of color covered by clouds. They had to take the ship a certain distance from any habitations to ensure that launch issues wouldn’t affect anyone should the ship unexpectedly explode or crash.

Once they reached a safe distance, Vari tipped the ship’s nose upwards. She cut smoothly through the atmosphere and into space and began to pull out of the planet’s gravity well, burning obscene amounts of fuel as she did so. Raleigh wrinkled her nose- that was one thing she didn’t like about the _Amelia_. The ship was gorgeous and capable, but she was designed to be a cargo transport, not a fighter, and she burned a lot of fuel trying to achieve the same kinds of speeds that fighters could hit with almost no effort at all.

A few minutes passed, and Vari’s voice echoed over the intercoms: “We’re free of Sykra’s gravity well and on our way to Rigel. Thirty minutes until we’re clear to engage FTL drives.”

Raleigh rearranged her HUD. The commander appeared again, taking the steps down into Vari’s bridge pit.

A few minutes later, someone else went by. Then three more people, who clustered around the pit, murmuring amongst themselves. Raleigh began to feel slightly nervous.

She tuned in on her eavesdropper, trying to figure out what was going on. The personal comms went from crew member to crew member, but Raleigh had figured out how to activate a program that turned the comm in the bridge pit on and let her and only her listen to it whenever she wanted. It transmitted over a normally disused frequency, so it didn’t trigger any alerts, and it didn’t disrupt any other signals. She wasn’t supposed to, and using it now made her was nervous as it was a technological loophole she’d only just discovered, but curiosity got the better of her.

“…at do you _mean_, you can’t identify it?” Charis. Raleigh winced- the commander did not sound pleased.

“I _mean_ it doesn’t match any known signature in my database.” Vari.

“So what is it? Some species we’re unaware of?” Charis sounded dubious.

“No. The signature is similar to our ship’s… and by that, I mean human ships. I think it’s a modified human ship. But there’s something wrong with its drive… it’s been altered somehow.”

“What modifications have been made?” That voice was Elliot, their chief engineer.

“I can’t tell exactly. It’s some cloaking, that’s for sure.” He paused; Charis didn’t react, so he elaborated. “Usually we ID ships by emissions, since we can’t get good visuals in space. This one seems to be collecting its residue, which… means that it’s hard to detect, let alone identify. Some kind of stealth mod.” Vari sounded frustrated, but also admiring. “That’s some useful tech right there.”

“I don’t care. Why are they following us?” Commander Charis again.

“Commander, with all due respect, how the hell should I know?” Vari was definitely annoyed. “I can jump us halfway across the galaxy and keep us from warping inside out, but I can’t read the minds of whoever’s piloting that monstrosity.”

Raleigh shut down her eavesdropper before it was detected. It sounded like they were being shadowed by something… another ship of some kind. She wondered what could possibly have any reason for shadowing them. Some kind of smuggling ship hoping to get to Iridere and hide its emissions in the _Amelia_’s trail?

That made sense. But where would a smuggling ship get emission cloaking devices? Raleigh didn’t know much about the black market, but she was pretty sure that even there you couldn’t get technology that hadn’t been developed.

Charis appeared from the bridge pit and stalked by again. She looked really annoyed now, and Raleigh tried to make herself small enough to not be noticed.

It didn’t work. The commander’s head snapped around like a predatory animal’s and she honed in on Raleigh. “Navigator.”

“Ulp,” Raleigh responded, looking up. “Yes?”

“You can control the aft emissions scanners and long-range rear scanners, yes?”

“Errrrr, yes…” Those weren’t technically in her domain, but it was easy to co-opt the controls of any other secondary station from where she was.

“Scan behind us.”

Raleigh complied, pulling control off of Station Gamma. “Oi!” the secondary called from off to her right, sounding annoyed. “What’d ya do that for?”

“I need to borrow these,” Raleigh called back to him, acutely aware of the commander watching. “I’ll give it right back, I promise.”

“Just ‘cause ye can,” the secondary muttered into his console. “Roight. Well, I’m sayin’ it’s your fault that I’m not working.”

Raleigh nodded in agreement, only half paying attention; she was focused on the scanners and their readings. There were faint, occasional puffs of emissions that the _Amelia_ definitely wasn’t putting out, and she could read echo signals from something that was staying a good quarter AU behind them. “I don’t know what that is… I don’t recognize that emission signal.” Although she knew that this was the ghost ship Vari had detected, she brought up the comparison database and recorded a few seconds of emissions to see if they matched anything in the base. Of course they didn’t. She didn’t expect them to, but she also had to pretend like she hadn’t been listening in on the small conference from before.

“Damn it,” Charis growled, swinging her head around again to look back towards the cockpit. “Alright. Well… don’t do anything, Raleigh. But keep tabs on the emissions’ source for me.” She paused. “If it stays nearby.”

Raleigh nodded meekly. “Will do, Commander.”

The commander nodded and left, heading back for the navigation center and star map. Raleigh let out a breath and turned back to her display. The ghost ship behind the _Amelia_ continued to let out little puffs of radioactivity into space at irregular intervals. Raleigh closed out the window, but left the scanners running. The secondary at Station Gamma gave her a dirty look and she shrugged helplessly at him.

It seemed like only a few minutes until Vari called over the intercoms again. “Engaging FTL drives in two minutes.”

Raleigh readied the ship, tightening the kinetic barriers and smoothing out the shape of the ship.

“Transferring to FTL core… now.”

Every crew member felt it as the _Amelia_ detached her engines from their normal power core, sending a shudder through the ship. Raleigh swallowed. This bit was always dangerous- she was always frightened that there would be some catastrophic issue and the _Amelia_ wouldn’t connect to her FTL core.

But she did. The ship shuddered again, gently this time, as the engines locked into place and hooked themselves up to the FTL core. The _Amelia_ drifted for a few seconds, and then there was a whine that quickly scaled up out of Raleigh’s hearing range.

“Engaging.”

The _Amelia_ leaped forwards, jostling everyone, and rippled a hole in the continuum as she slid into faster-than-light travel. Raleigh wondered if the ghost ship would follow them, and if it even could while they were jumping.

She wished the _Amelia_ had some kind of port viewer or window. In FTL, she’d be able to look out and actually see things like black holes and quasars because the wavelengths they’d be emitting, normally invisible to humans, would be shifted against the ship and actually visible to her.

“Approximate time in FTL transit is sixty-four hours,” Vari informed them over the intercom. “And… we’re set. The captain – and, uh, that would be me – has turned the seat belt sign off. Feel free to move about the cabin.” He sounded quite satisfied with himself.

Raleigh leaned back. Her scanners showed that everything was in perfect shape. Nothing to worry about, no ghost ships to track in FTL, no debris to shield from, nothing to stress over.

The _Amelia_ roared silently onwards, nose blue and tail red, splitting the blackness for seconds as she traveled faster than starlight towards destinations and destiny.


	3. Snowblind: Arrival at Tyto Colony

Rays of light pierced the clouds overhead, mottling the tundra hills. Miniscule snowflakes drifted through the air, barely stirring in the light wind over the plains.

Fourteen minutes.

Arkane clicked the light off the bulky storm watch on their left arm, shaking their head gently. Fourteen minutes. Not even a problem- the Tyto Colony was only a few hills away. Arkane could cover a full _mile_ in fourteen minutes without rushing. They’d be fine.

They still had six minutes to spare when they reached the colony.

The people there knew the storm was coming, of course. Arkane could see that the doors had been locked, the windows barricaded. People got ready quick when a storm warning was issued.

Where was the postal center? Arkane paused on a hill overlooking the colony, searching. From here, the gleaming roofs of prefab buildings all looked the same. It was impossible to say which was the post office.

Hmm. Perhaps it would be more prudent to seek shelter somewhere rather than to try and find the center. They glanced around, trying to see if there were any shelters nearby…

Their watch beeped. They looked down at it, confused, and realized that this was the three-minute warning. Shocked, Arkane looked up again and hurried down the hill towards the nearest fortified house. Their heavy gloves prevented them from knocking politely; they instead pounded the white-painted metal a few times and waited.

There was no sound for a moment, and Arkane’s heart sank. “Oh, answer,” they whispered, voice muffled and altered by the half-face respirator mask that covered their nose and mouth.

Finally, Arkane heard noises of locks being thrown, and the door clicked open. “Get in!” snapped someone from inside. Arkane didn’t waste a moment and hurried inside.

The owner of the voice slammed the door shut and began to lock it with a series of deadbolts. Arkane blinked at the sudden darkness, unable to see not only because of the sudden lack of direct sunlight but because of the tint on their goggles. They pulled their hood down and lifted the goggles.

“So who are you?”

Arkane turned towards the demand. Of course- the homeowner. “Hello,” they started. “My name is- oh, one moment.” Realizing that nobody could hear anything while they had their respirator on, Arkane carefully removed the mask and let it hang around their neck. “Pardon me. My name is Navara Arkane. I’m a courier.”

“A courier, huh?” The person Arkane was speaking to seemed to be a short, powerfully built woman with black and white hair. She had pants covered in pockets, boots, and a black shirt, and a dark jacket tied around her waist. “Nice to meet you, Arkane. I’m Sasinawa Orca.”

Arkane cast a quick glance up at Orca’s hair, then around at the room. “When the storm finishes, could you point me towards the post office?”

Orca opened her mouth to say something, but Arkane’s watch suddenly made an incredibly loud ringing sound. Arkane slapped their hand on it with a muffled exclamation, shutting off the ringing. “Sorry,” they said, embarrassed. “That’s the twenty-second storm warning.” Though if a courier was out on the plains when that went off, they were going to get snowblinded.

The two stood there for a moment. Finally Orca turned and leaned over her couch to peer out the window at the world outside. Arkane joined her and they looked out the metal blinds at the few houses they could see.

The sky was puffy clouds, all crowded together, occasionally letting a beam of Corelight through. Abruptly, they got very dark, and suddenly out of nowhere a blast of wind slammed into the house, bringing with it dense white snow. Within seconds the other houses were invisible, as was the road. All the light had vanished. Orca shivered, and Arkane drew back.

“I can’t believe you risk going out in those storms,” Orca murmured, staring at the snow in fascination. “That’s terrifying.”

“Not if you are fast enough.” Arkane glanced around. “May I be seated?”

“Oh, sure, sure.” Orca gestured to the couch. “Sorry about that.”

Arkane nodded and slipped their snowshoes off, then sat on the couch, politely looking around the room.

“You want some tea?” Orca asked, glancing out at the snow. “Not much else to do right now.”

Glancing down at their watch, Arkane realized this storm was supposed to last thirty-four minutes. “Sure,” they said, shutting off the watch display and unbuckling the thing from their sleeve so they could take their coat off. “That would be lovely.”

“Mm. Sure thing.” Orca hurried off into a different part of the house. Arkane lifted their bag off and set it on the couch, then peeled their coat off and laid it on the cushions as well. The watch they set on the table in front of the couch. Their gloves they set on top of the coat.

Orca reappeared minutes later with a set of teacups and a steaming kettle. “Take your pick,” she said, pointing to several different tea powders. Arkane wasn’t sure what each one was, so they chose a random one- it was blue-green- and mixed it up. It smelled pleasantly of some herbs that Arkane couldn’t identify by scent alone, and the taste was muted. Orca picked a rusty orange powder for herself and ended up with a tea that smelled strongly of citrus.

Outside, the wind screamed by, ripping at anything that wasn’t screwed into the ground. Arkane was glad they’d had time to close the door all the way and set the dead bolts. Wind could get in a lot of places.

“So why are you at Tyto?” Orca finally asked, cocking her head slightly to the side. Arkane noticed that her eyes were slightly pointed, and an incredibly dark brown color, almost black.

“Delivering mail,” Arkane said, as if it were obvious. “I am a courier.”

“Got anything special?”

“Not that I know of. Just routine things to drop off at the post office.”

“Where do you usually operate out of?”

Arkane took a sip of tea. “I usually stay in and around Ceos, the research base. But now that I’m out at Tyto, I’ll probably deliver from here for a while. Tyto’s quite a trek from Ceos. Next time something goes that way I’ll return.”

“Sure, sure.” Orca nodded. “Makes sense. You’ll stay in the post office while you’re here?”

“Probably. They have courier quarters, I assume? Most do.”

“I think so.” Orca took a sip of her tea and made a face, then added some more of the orange powder. The scent of citrus intensified. “This stuff’s losing its potency.”

“Is it really?” Arkane asked, only slightly concerned.

Orca just shrugged.

Arkane glanced out at the snow and took another sip of tea.

“Hey,” Orca said suddenly. “Got anything for me in that bag?”

“Good question.” Arkane put their teacup down and reached for the messenger bag. It was pegged shut, and they struggled with it for a moment before they managed to open it up and look inside. “Sasinawa….. yes, actually, here. From Ceos.”

Orca eagerly took the envelope that Arkane held out. She ripped it open easily and pulled out the few sheets of paper inside. “Hey, it’s from Ursa,” she exclaimed. “She works at the base.”

Arkane nodded. They weren’t overly familiar with the scientists, but they knew many of them by name. Sasinawa Ursa was one of their biotech specialists, particularly biotech for cold-weather environments like Xovan. They should have recognized the family name.

Orca’s expression changed as she read through the letter, becoming more confused and slightly upset. “Oh,” she said, when she finished, and laid it down on the table.

“Bad news?”

Orca sighed. “Sort of?”

Arkane nodded. If Orca wanted to talk about it, she would.

They were right. She sighed heavily and continued. “Apparently she and the others are being pressured by some… um, unauthorized buyers to sell a lot of their research. It’s just worrisome.”

“Black market smugglers? Hmm.” Arkane continued to enjoy their tea. “I can see why that would be a problem. The research at Ceos is often quasi-legal in nature. The law doesn’t visit Xovan very often.”

Orca seemed upset. “That’s not- I mean- look, they can’t really-“

“I live there. I’m fine with that.” Arkane was amused that Orca thought they wouldn’t know about the illegal research; they had seen many very interesting things, including a few bioengineered creatures that some of the scientists kept as pets.

Orca subsided with a sigh.

Something heavy smacked into the window- probably a large clump of snow. Both Arkane and Orca jumped with the surprise of it.

Arkane picked up their watch from the table and clicked the display on. There were seventeen minutes left in the storm.

The rest of it passed in silence, for the most part. Finally, the winds abated, and just as suddenly as the storm had come it vanished. Snow was piled up against the houses and the sun broke through the clouds again. A few snowflakes drifted gently down from the sky.

“I have likely overstayed my welcome,” Arkane stated, setting their teacup down. “And I must find the post office.”

Orca chewed on her lip, seeming to make a decision. “I can show you where it is,” she mumbled after a moment, running her finger around the rim of her teacup. “Cool?”

“I would appreciate that, yes,” Arkane replied, smiling. “Thank you.”

With a curt nod, Orca set her cup down and stood. “I’ll get my coat.”

“I will prepare myself.”

Orca left the room. Arkane paused for a moment, then slipped their gloves and coat on. It would be uncomfortably warm for a few minutes, but that wasn’t really much of a problem.

By the time Arkane had managed to get their bag and snowshoes on, Orca was back, this time wearing a long coat and a pair of heavy metal-adorned boots. She had a black mask that covered the lower half of her face; her hair and hood kept the rest of her head warm.

“Ready?” she asked.

Arkane nodded. “Ready.” They pulled their respirator up and settled it over their mouth, then slid the goggles down onto their face, sweeping their pale, cream-white hair out of the way as they did so.

“I like your hair,” Orca said.

“Thank you,” Arkane replied, words muffled by the mask.

Orca nodded. She undid the dead bolts on the door and opened it.

Snow fell in. Orca swore a few times, and Arkane stifled a laugh before stepping over it and out into the sunshine. Orca followed them.

The clouds were gilded with metallic sunlight, and Arkane was extremely glad for the tint on their goggles. It prevented them from being blinded by the glare – a serious danger on Xovan when the ‘sun’ was out.

“It’s this way,” called Orca, pointing. She started off through colony, and Arkane followed her, walking lightly on top of the piled snow. Orca shot them more than one infuriated glance as she forced her way through the drifts.

They made a series of confusing turns through the low metal prefab buildings. They all looked the same; this is how it was with most colonies on Xovan, and while Arkane was used to the monotonous surroundings, not all colonies were laid out the same. It was still difficult to find their way around in ones they hadn’t been to before.

Finally, Orca pointed Arkane towards a building that seemed more blue than the rest of them. “That’s the post office.”

“Thank you,” Arkane said. “I appreciate your help. I may have gotten trapped out in the storm if not for you.”

“No problem,” Orca replied brightly. “Thanks for bringing me information from my sister.”

“Just doing my job.”

Orca smacked them on the arm, which startled the courier. “Oh, stop. Hey, come by some time and we can have tea again. It’ll be fun.”

“I very well may take you up on that offer.”

Orca’s eyes crinkled up in a smile that Arkane could see even through her mask. “You do that.”

She turned and headed back the way they’d came, back to her home. Arkane turned and vanished into the post office.


	4. Interlude - Lore: Iridere

Iridere is a magnificent construction, 24,000 years old, orbiting the triple star Rigel.

Iridere consists of seven Rings and a single light source in the middle called the Core. Each of the Rings is connected to the Core by a single enormous support, and the Core shifts around like the center of a Rubix cube in order to allow the Rings to all rotate around the Core in various interesting patterns.

The Rings, in order from closest to the Core to farthest, are as follows:

  1. Ferolus
  2. Wenyrev
  3. Corrix
  4. Kalyrio
  5. Averan
  6. Harbour
  7. Xovan

The Rings are mostly flat ovals or circles surrounding a Core. They have a side facing in towards the Core and a side facing out towards space. The inner side of the Core is the side that has daylight. The outer side faces towards space, and does not get nearly as much light- although, as the Rings turn, the outer sides are exposed to the light of Rigel.

Ordinarily, this would meant that the inner surfaces of the Rings have no day/night cycle because they always face inwards. However, the Core has been designed to accommodate for that.

The Core is covered in multiple large, geometrically identical plates that can shift around to allow for the movement of the Ring supports. The plates are covered in a sort of nuclear coal and ember material- they are burning constantly. The center of the Rings is controlled by a virtual intelligence program which has been conducting day and night for the entirety of the Core’s existence and will continue to do so for as long as the Core exists.

The Core spends approximately fifteen hours of every day-night cycle in a semi-dormant state, gathering in material from the asteroids that are common in the space about the Rings and radiation that passes through the area. During this time the Core’s light is diminished by 97% and the Rings will experience a kind of night. After the allotted ‘night’ time, the Core burns material for another fifteen hours, producing light and heat that reaches to Xovan. Unfortunately the distance between the Core and Xovan requires the output to be incredibly strong, meaning that the closest Ring, Ferolus, takes quite the beating during the day hours, while the furthest Ring, Xovan, is always cold.

Given that the Rings are peculiarly shaped and warmed from their center of collective mass by a construction that isn’t a star, the weather can be very unstable or variable, or altogether strange. Most of the Rings have understandable weather patterns or atmospheric regulators that assist in controlling the climate, but even this can go awry.

For example, Xovan has a very specific schedule that its weather adheres to due to the fact that the main regulator for the Ring was damaged and now forces the weather to adhere to a predetermined schedule of constant calm interspersed with intense, deadly storms. These storms can be predicted to the second; but as the weather is too harsh for radio waves to travel properly, they have a system of couriers who travel between the blizzards to deliver mail. The couriers must be incredibly fast to cover a lot of ground between the storms, which can have intervals as short as fifteen minutes or as long as a week. Their routes are dotted with safehouses specifically put at regular intervals as places for the couriers to shelter during the storms, which are so sudden and deadly that, if caught in one, a person cannot move. The wind slams down and instantly ‘snowblinds’ (a term referring to the way one’s vision is reduced to a blank field of white due to the intensity of the snowfall and wind) anyone in its path. They are instantly disoriented- it’s easy to stumble into crevasse or off a cliff this way, and the cold wind can easily kill a human. Being snowblinded is very close to being a death sentence.

In contrast, the weather on Ferolus is beyond hot. Temperatures- especially near the equator- usually hover around 47 degrees Celcius, give or take about six degrees. On the shadowside, the equator can stay around 27 degrees, sometimes becoming as warm as 32 or as cool as 20. At the edges of the outer side, where heat leaks over from the inner side, the average temperature is about 30 degrees. But the heat is all dry- Ferolus has little water on it, and what it has is concentrated in a large lake on one side of the Ring. Directly across the Ring from the lake are huge, dry mountains, covered in dust and rock and tiny scraggly trees. Rain is extremely scarce, although it does exist, and there are oases in the desert surrounding the mountains that provide water, for both the plants and animals that live there. Fortunately most of the life has adapted to existence with almost no water.

Between Ferolus and Xovan, the climate on the other Rings varies dramatically- every biome possible is represented with the exception of those created or directly affected by geothermal and volcanic action. There are jungles, swamps, oceans, plainslands, mountains, deserts, forests of many kinds, steppes and canyons, scrublands… these are but a few of the biomes existing. The Rings are as variable as the surface of Earth is. 

Travel between the Rings is, in fact, possible. It may seem highly unlikely given that each Ring is far enough apart from its neighbors as to not be a nuisance and also retain its own atmosphere, but when Rings cross in their bizarre twisting paths they come close enough that an airship can fly from one’s atmosphere to the next without entering the vaccuum. There is no point to using this if the ships are spaceworthy and capable of vaccuum travel, as the ships then can simply fly from whichever Ring they choose to the next. Usually, however, ships will use the atmospheric connection to travel simply because it saves fuel.

The crossings of the Rings are predetermined by the twisting of the Rings, their speed, and the movement of the other Rings. They are slowing down slightly due to the Core’s age, but are otherwise still functioning perfectly.


	5. The Amelia: Ferolus Run

“Attention, crew,” came Vari’s voice over the speakers. “Prepare to drop out of FTL travel. It’s gonna be a little bumpy for a few seconds, so don’t hold anything that spills.”

Raleigh rolled her eyes, but prepared herself anyways, sliding into her station and waiting. She could feel the ship slowing a tiny bit as the _Amelia_ slowed her drive core. Raleigh winced- the sound she heard was too high for her ears to register, but it still made her eardrums hurt. Then it scaled down through a series of whining notes until the ship shuddered and dropped out of FTL travel. The universe became visible around them.

Raleigh eagerly pulled up the view from the fore scanners. They paused, telling her they were warming up to be online. She rolled her eyes.

“Disengaging FTL drive,” Vari called calmly. The _Amelia_ shuddered again and drifted as she switched over from her FTL core to her normal engine core. She made a comfortable sideways settling motion as she connected, and then the scanners came online.

The view was not what Raleigh had expected. Normally when they approached a system they saw it from above and had an hour or so of flying in. But now… Raleigh held her breath unintentionally.

On the screen before her she saw two blue-white orbs next to each other, revolving around an invisible center. Off to the right was a third orb, moving away from them. She knew what they were- the triple stars that formed Rigel.

And in front of it all was Iridere.

The great construction hung in space, each ring hanging around the glowing central Core. The outer side of each Ring was fairly dark, some of them dotted with lights, and the inner side was covered in various landforms and bodies of water. The supports for each Ring moved slightly, helping the giant constructions rotate properly, making the surface of the Core shift and change where they connected to it. The entire construction glimmered in Rigel’s starlight.

“Yes, yes, everyone take a look,” Vari sighed over the intercom. “Overload my front cameras.”

The few crewmembers who hadn’t been looking at Iridere so far immediately pulled up a view of it. Raleigh heard a wave of gasps and whispered comments about the massive construction sweep across the bridge.

She immediately tuned into the cockpit- she knew Charis was up there with Vari. Her eavesdropper signal gave her a few seconds of silence until Charis started talking.

“You know, Vari, you were cutting it a little bit close with the endpoint to that jump,” Charis said, sounding almost amused. “You really wanted to give us a good view, didn’t you?”

“Maybe.” Vari sounded smug. Again: he had every right to.

“Well, take us in. Don’t run into the supports, and head for Ferolus first. We’re going from the inside out.”

“’Don’t run into the supports.’ What do you think I am, some kind of amateur?”

“God, I hope not.”

Vari turned on the intercom again. “Welcome to Iridere, everyone. Get ready to orbit the Core for a bit and head for our first target.”

The _Amelia_ turned slightly and powered up her engines, eagerly jumping towards the Core. Vari would likely take them in orbit around it a few times before slingshotting them off to Ferolus.

Something caught her attention- a blinking light at the bottom of her HUD. Raleigh frowned and maximized the window.

The ghost ship had followed them through. She could detect the faint puffs of irregular emissions that weren’t caught by whatever emissions cloaking device this ship was using. Raleigh pulled up the aft cameras, but just as before, couldn’t see anything. Whatever the ghost ship was, it was good at staying a ghost.

It didn’t seem to have any sort of malicious intent towards them. If it wanted to shoot them down, it probably could have done that by now. But it hadn’t, so either it wasn’t going to attack them or it had some sort of sinister plan. The _Amelia_ wasn’t that maneuverable of a ship- it didn’t have quite the control a fighter did- so it wouldn’t be that hard to hit her...

“Hold on,” Vari said, privately, to Charis. Raleigh still hadn’t turned her eavesdropper off and could hear whatever went on in the cockpit. “Before we go any further-.”

“Let the station on Kalyrio know that we’re in the area.”

“Yep.” Vari paused for a few seconds- he was probably organizing a call of some kind. “Hello? Hello? This is the T.F.S. _Amelia_ to Kalyrio Station.”

“_Amelia,_ we read you,” said an unrecognizable voice. “What are you doing here?”

“Here to run some of the Rings and conduct a biosurvey here and there,” Charis cut in casually. “We’ve also got some trades to make at Kalyrio Station and Xovan.”

“Xovan, or Xovan Orbital?”

“Orbital.”

A pause. “Who sent you?”

“We’re part the human Traders’ Fleet.”

“What does the Traders’ Fleet want with a biosurvey?”

“We’re transport and research,” Charis told the questioner. This sounded somewhat rehearsed. “We’ve got some scientists aboard.”

“And why do you want the biosurvey?”

“I fail to see how our motivations for a biosurvey affect our landing and transit clearance.”

A moment of silence. Raleigh resisted the urge to giggle at Charis’ shutdown of the operator’s nosey questioning.

“T.F.S. _Amelia_, you are cleared for inter-Ring transit. All of the Rings are open to close survey and travel except for Corrix. We assume you are familiar with the rules concerning Corrix?”

“Yes.”

“Very well. You are clear.”

“Thanks, Kalyrio,” Vari cut in, interrupting to take control of the conversation. “We’ll get started right away. _Amelia_ out.”

A moment of silence, punctuated by a deep sigh from the commander.

“Nice handling,” Vari commented, after a minute.

“I do my best,” Charis responded. Raleigh wondered where the two of them had been before- they’d joined the ship at the same time, transferring over from somewhere else. They seemed very close. “Kalyrio’s always been hard on anyone incoming, but they really don’t like the Traders’ Fleet. A lot of traders have come in under trader cover and turned out to be Shadowside smugglers.”

Raleigh paused. Shadowside? What was that?

“Oh, believe me, I know about Kalyrio being hardasses. Trust me.”

“I do. That’s why you fly my ship.”

Raleigh figured she was prying now and turned the eavesdropper off. She was curious about the Commander’s past, but she wasn’t going to know unless she asked, and using her eavesdropper certainly wasn’t asking.

The _Amelia_ peeled off, heading past the outer Ring orbits towards the Core. Raleigh just watched as Vari slung the ship once around the Core and immediately out again to Ferolus.

He and the Commander must have had a conversation about where exactly to go, because the _Amelia_ turned sideways and came in on approach to Ferolus. Raleigh watched as the Ring grew larger beneath them, the atmosphere widening, the curve becoming less and less visible as they descended towards the pale orange surface.

“Stop staring at your viewscreens and ready the ship for atmospheric entry,” Vari called to all of the secondary pilots, including Raleigh. She jumped guiltily and checked on the kinetic barriers of the ship. She and three others were responsible for making Vari’s job as easy as it could be, since he was the one who actually carried out the larger processes and told the ship where to go. They took care of the smaller things.

“Raleigh, are we ready for entry?” Vari’s voice echoed in her personal comms link. Raleigh, who wasn't used to being asked large and important questions like 'are we ready for entry,' didn't respond for a second.

“Navigator?”

“Errrr,” she said, jolting herself back to attention. “Ah. Let me check.” She pulled up the overall status of the ship on her HUD. Nothing was out of place. “Yeah. We’re good.”

“Great. Don’t be surprised that I went to you for the answer,” Vari said cheerfully, before Raleigh could say anything else. “You’re smart. Expect my questions more often.”

“Okay, sir,” Raleigh replied instinctively, mildly terrified.

Vari’s voice switched to echoing over the intercom. “Descending towards Ferolus. Opening wings for A-flight stability.”

There was a faint clunking noise and Raleigh’s HUD showed that the _Amelia_’s wings had extended out. They were used to help her navigate in an actual atmosphere.

“Entering Ferolus’ atmosphere in three… two… one…”

The wave of resistance the _Amelia_ encountered as she dipped into the atmosphere of the first Ring was strong enough to throw Raleigh back into her seat a bit. She recovered herself, startled, and sent a glare towards the cockpit. Even if the ship automatically dampened external impact, a quick enough dip into actual air from a vacuum would throw her off. Vari was a good enough pilot that this wasn’t a mistake he would make casually. The Rings were probably the reason; their atmospheres worked differently from planetary ones.

Vari didn’t see Raleigh’s annoyed glance, of course, nor did he react to it. He directed the ship downwards, and the sky around them rapidly grew very blue and bright, the gases absorbing the light of the Core and filtering out the blackness of space.

Below the _Amelia_ stretched a vast desert, orange sand and rock extending for as far as the _Amelia_’s cameras could see. They descended towards this expanse of dry land, the sand below forming hills and valleys and the rocks creating canyons and dry riverbeds.

“Stabilizing flight at forty-two thousand feet,” Vari murmured over the intercom. “We’ve got a few minutes before we reach Synderon.” Vari had fixed the entry at a point that was far enough from the port not to interfere with any other traffic, but close enough that they wouldn’t have more than a few minutes of atmospheric flight, which didn’t always agree with the _Amelia_ so well. While her body was designed to accommodate A-flight and she had wings that could support her, she much preferred moving through the vacuum.

In minutes, the _Amelia_’s cameras revealed a white sandstone city appearing out of the heat and wind. Vari brought them closer, and came down a bit to fly in lazy circles around the city.

Raleigh, who had always wanted to understand how to pilot a ship, listened in on him with the eavesdropper.

“_Amelia_ to Synderon Port. This is the T.F.S. _Amelia_, requesting permission to dock.”

“Synderon Port to the _Amelia_. You’re expected and cleared for Dock 23.4-42B.”

“Roger that, Synderon.” Vari shut off the comms to the port and was silent for a second, only occasionally humming a few notes to himself. Raleigh wondered if there was anything else to listen to.

“Hmm,” he said after a few minutes, pausing. Then: “Alright, lovely… let’s go on in, hmm? Pull those wings in a bit. That’s right… drop some height, circle on down. Anyone in the way? No? Goooood.”

Raleigh was torn. Should she continue listening? He was basically explaining the entire process to her without even realizing it… She’d keep her eavesdropper on. No harm in listening in. It wasn’t like it would affect anything.

The _Amelia_ dropped altitude quickly, and the towers of Synderon became clearer. Vari kept muttering quietly, talking himself through the process. Raleigh had to stop herself from taking notes.

The city grew beneath them, expanding into a sprawling white and orange metropolis of glittering towers and geometric buildings, each fitting neatly against the others, separated by narrow streets. The roofs were flat, and a person could easily walk or run across them. Many had rooftop gardens and canopies over small, open-air dining areas.

In the center of the city was a massive spiraling building. Near it was a hulking spaceport, built into a massive crater in the ground. The _Amelia_ came in and hovered over the crater for a moment, then swiveled neatly and descended straight downwards. Raleigh listened as Vari murmured to himself, carefully regulating each puff of the subjets that kept the ship aloft in her descent.

Beneath the crater, the ground opened up into a massive fortified cavern. Docks were built into the sides and Raleigh could see that there were even some large trading or passenger freighters docked- a Condor VI here, a Monitor III there. There were a few fyaeiarnae ships, what looked like a small nyphelim frigate a distance to the left, and a couple of shiny khavvichthi vessels scattered through the crowd, though the fyaeiarnae didn’t really enjoy Ferolus, and the khavvichthi needed oxygen supplements to even visit. The cavern went down quite a ways, and the _Amelia_ continued going downwards until she found Dock 23.4-42B.

“In we go,” Vari whispered. “We’ll just nose our way on in there… Subradio the docking clamps… Wonderful job, old girl.” He turned the intercom on as the _Amelia_ was clamped into place and supported by struts underneath. “We’re now docked underneath the city of Synderon. Let’s drop off these goods. Secondary pilots, you did a fantastic job. Thanks to all of you.”

Raleigh glowed with pride, even though in reality she hadn’t done that much. She loved having Vari as their flight captain- he was incredibly kind to all of them, and gave them credit where it was due, thanking them for helping him fly. In return, the crew was fiercely loyal to him and, by association, the commander. Although she instilled loyalty in them too, in her own way.

Her own very scary way.

Raleigh turned her eavesdropper off and sat back, minimizing her HUD, before remembering the ghost ship. “Oh,” she muttered, and scanned behind them, hoping she wouldn’t accidentally trip anyone’s alarms.

None of the ships in the port- at least, none of the ones nearby- were emitting the same kind of irregular pulses as the ghost ship. Maybe it had stopped cloaking, or maybe it wasn’t here. There didn’t seem to be any black-painted ships in the port from what Raleigh could see, but that could be cloaking rather than paint.

“Navigator.”

Raleigh jumped, terrified. Charis was behind her. “Yes! Commander!”

“Any sign of the ghost ship?”

Thank heavens she’d just checked. “It followed us here,” she reported, pulling up the log on her display. “But I lost it when we entered Ferolus’ atmosphere. I just scanned all the ships near us in the port but I can’t find the weird emissions signal it’s been outputting, or any ship that might be able to camouflage itself against empty space. But that doesn’t mean it’s gone.” She shrugged. “It could be here. It could be not here. There’s too many strange ships to really tell.”

The commander sighed. “I thought as much. Well, keep checking anyways. I’ve been worrying about that damn thing.”

“You’re not the only one,” Raleigh muttered, glancing back to her HUD.

“Glad to hear it.” The commander’s tone was more amused than anything, and she thumped the back of Raleigh’s chair once before moving off. Raleigh started, not expecting the gesture.

“Get this cargo unloaded!” she heard Charis yell, down the hall, to some unfortunate crewmember. “We technically do have all day, but let’s pretend we don’t, hmm?”


	6. Shadowside: Kalyrio

Floor lights along the edges of the room cast a faint blue-green glow up the walls. Glass bubbles with lights in them let yellow and white shine down gently from the ceiling. One wall was a curving series of glass windows, looking out over a darkened city, tall buildings poking up off the surface of Kalyrio as it stretched away and swept out of eyesight. From as high up as this office was, one could actually see the curvature of the Ring; it seemed as if one were standing atop a hill and seeing it stretch away upwards into the distance.

The other side of the room had a set of steps leading up to a platform surrounded by curving walls. Inside that small semicircle was a single chair, with someone in it.

The door to the room opened. “Director?” called a slightly nervous voice.

“Enter.”

The door closed. Someone walked in, stepping gently, as if they were picking their way over land mines.

“Report on the reconnaissance mission,” the figure in the chair ordered, unmoving.

“Well, it’s going quite well, Director,” the newcomer responded, a little too quickly. “Um. We haven’t managed to get any advanced readings-“

“Why not?”

“Well, the Iridere system police are really cracking down on Shadowside operations.”

“They’ve been doing this for years. What’s changed?” The figure’s voice was flat, commanding. It wasn’t so much a question as an order for an answer.

“Because they changed their tactics, Director…?”

“Do explain yourself.”

“I- well- uhhh…”

The newcomer trailed off. There was a heavy sigh from the Director, and she shifted slightly.

“We’ll have no choice but to send in a sleeper operative,” she said, leaning on one arm. “Run through the list of those who would have the highest chance of success given our… unique situation.”

“Oh- yes, Director!” Finally, the newcomer thought with a sigh of relief, something he could do. He easily rattled off several names, until the figure held up her hand.

“Stop. Go back one.”

“Err… Cendrick?”

“Yes.” The figure shifted again, nodding. “Cendrick. He’ll do well for this task.”

“Shall I send him to you…?”

“Yes. Bring him here, and then ensure no one disturbs us.”

The second person fled the room. He returned several minutes later with Cendrick.

“Leave us,” the figure in the chair said. The underling left, not unrelieved.

“Hello,” Cendrick said easily, strolling a little further into the room.

“I have a mission for you.”

“Fantastic.”

The figure ran through the entire mission premise, then sent Cendrick off.

Cendrick’s own ship was out of the system at the moment, though it would be back soon enough for him to take it when he needed it. He had all the time in the world.

For now, however, he commandeered a shuttle.

“But, sir, I’m going to-“

“Not anymore.” Cendrick leaned rather threateningly against the shuttle’s doorway as its pilot stood inside. “Now you’re going to take me where I need to go.”

“Whose authority are you acting with?” This shuttle pilot was less timid than most. Cendrick appreciated that, but…

“Do you _really_ need to ask?”

The shuttle pilot wilted. “I, I…. oh,” he said, rather meekly. . “Well… alright, then. Can I at least offload my cargo to someone else?”

“You’ve got ten minutes. Get it done, and quickly.” Cendrick backed off slightly. The pilot whipped out a numeral pad and called someone, speaking urgently.

“Yes, I know it’s another favor… no, I really- no, it’s someone important, I can’t- alright, I’ll admit I cheated last time in that deal and I’ll give the green box back. Okay? Just take this stuff, please. I can’t have the delivery be late but I’ve got to get… great. Hurry up. I’ve got three minutes for you to get here, tops.” He hung up and spent the next few minutes directing his cargo out from the shuttle back onto the dock.

Cendrick timed it.

“One minute left,” he called, leaning lazily against the wall.

“I’m sorry!” the pilot wailed. “I’m almost- aaaaargh…”

When the time ran out, Cendrick boarded the shuttle. The pilot had managed to offload most of his goods.

They backed neatly out of the port and rose vertically, engines burning a faint reddish-purple color. The darkness below them was broken by a thousand lights, half of them docked ships, half of them shining out from the massive buildings that dotted Kalyrio’s shadowed outer surface. The shuttle drew away, rising up from the Fourth Ring and breaking through its nearly nonexistent atmosphere.

“And where did you say you were going again, sir?”

“Here…” Cendrick leaned over the pilot’s shoulder and pointed out a very specific route to his designated drop location. “Now, there are ports… but we’re really not going to any of them. They don’t really function very well. So you’re going to drop me here…”

The pilot obeyed, and the shuttle whipped off into space.


	7. Interlude - Lore: Ring Specifics

Each of the Rings of Iridere has a number of specific qualities unique to that Ring. The most interesting characteristics of the each Ring are listed below:

  1. Ferolus

Ferolus is the closest of the seven Rings to the Core. This means that it is blasted by heat constantly, and any life there is centered around what water there is in the desert Ring. Cities are clustered around oases and caverns where water may puddle in the shadowed basins; the one lake on Ferolus is completely surrounded by civilized habitation. There are wells drilled in the desert, but their functionality is questionable, given that Ferolus is an artificial construction and has a core of metal. No one really knows how far down the rock goes- it seems to vary- but the natural water table is situated extremely deep within the bedrock, and in some places does not exist at all because of the distance to Ferolus’ core.   
The people of Ferolus live in large cities around water sources, reminiscent of Earth’s North African or Middle Eastern cities. The buildings are all around the same height, shaped geometrically to fit into each other, meaning that all the streets are narrow and walled in by buildings. The rooftops are flat and there are a lot of windows allowing for air to circulate in, dispelling the heat of high noon. The exception to this design is anywhere that authoritative figures may live. Those buildings are taller, sometimes with domes added, and even occasionally painted. Painting isn’t really common, though, because the fierce heat and brilliant light of the Core fades the paint off buildings.

The commercial center of Ferolus is Synderon Port, the largest spaceport on the Ring. From ground level it seems like another city- albeit a little larger than most- but its true value lies in the massive cavern network below, large enough to house quite a lot of ships. Freighters and cruise liners stay in the main cavern, while smaller transports and luxury ships dock in the inner caverns. Miniscule fighters and shuttles get the smallest caves.  
There are three types of desert on Ferolus: Sand desert, scrub desert, and canyon desert.  
People do not typically venture out into any of the desert, not only because there is no water- unless you find an uncharted oasis, which can happen- but because of the very unfriendly native wildlife. In the sandier areas of the desert, ‘sand spiders’ lay in wait. These are neither sand nor spiders, though they look like both, for they have six legs and are extremely flat. They bury themselves in on their backs in the sand and wait for something to walk over, so that they may catch it with their long, precise limbs and devour it. Other predators of the sand desert include sun hawks (dun-colored teratorns), sand vipers, and dune centipedes.  
The main wildlife hazards of the scrub desert are burrowing roundmouths, mud scuttlers, saltflat creepers, and packs of feral dust lizards, all of which are well adapted to the dry soil scrublands.   
And in the canyons, one must be aware of several things: the rock eagles, mesa runners, canyon centipedes, noontide ants, and canyon lions. Fortunately, the canyonlands typically do not also have the added danger of dehydration and sunstroke, as most of them are located on the Ring’s dark side and are reminiscent of what the land was designed to look like. There are even creeks running through some of the canyons, popping up from bizarre little springs in the rocks.

  1. Wenyrev

The second Ring from the Core, Wenyrev is just as hot as Ferolus, but with one extremely important difference: Where Ferolus is a vast desert with little water, Wenyrev has enough water to turn all of Ferolus into a swamp.  
The equatorial band on the inner side of Wenyrev is formed of dense tropical jungle, almost impossible to move through and certainly impossible to build in, for the most part. The tropic areas are dominated by swamp and mangrove biomes, while the edges of the Ring are covered by a wide shallow sea. This pattern is exactly the same along the entire length of Wenyrev- it does not deviate anywhere, and the latitudes of the biome changes are almost exactly the same for every surveyed point on the Ring. The only place where this pattern does not hold is where the support joins Wenyrev to the Core.  
There aren’t many people living on Wenyrev, partially because of the impassable equatorial jungle band and partially because the soil is absolutely wretched for any sort of agricultural use. Tropical rainforest soil usually is- the constant rain washes all the nutrients out. The only sentient spacefaring species that live on Wenyrev are those who reside in its rather scattered research bases. Communication between the bases is rather difficult, and only achievable through wired lines that have been painstakingly run from one base to the next. Usually a message must be relayed through several bases in order to reach its destination.

  1. Corrix  
Corrix is the least visited of the Rings, and there are strict rules against even flying near it. At one point there were thriving human and alien populations on Corrix, but fighting broke out between the two and they separated. The humans, withdrawing to certain cities, lost contact with the other Rings and the rest of the universe during the sacking of one of their major cities. The alien populations did not lose connection with the rest of Iridere and the galaxy. The humans dropped back in technology after a series of droughts, famines, and plagues dealt massive blows to the population, and while it stabilized after a time, they had fallen back to medieval-level technology and had only legends of the technological advancements of their past. While the other Rings could have easily re-established contact with the humans of Corrix, the collective decision was made not to. Corrix is now regarded as a massive laboratory, for the observation of how a civilization forms.  
The people of Corrix are primitive in comparison to the rest of the humans in the Rings. Their weaponry is restricted to broadswords, bows and arrows, lances, and rapiers. Gunpowder has not yet been discovered. Humans live in walled cities and settlements surrounded by farms, and in small isolated farm communities in the richer agricultural areas of Corrix’s continents.  
The larger cities are built in strategic places, castles and ports constructed on cliffsides or in river deltas or bays. There are a few cities which are built on the remains of the pre-war cities, although the ruins are either buried in dirt and overgrown or half-dismantled and turned into ‘newer’ buildings.  
Ruins of old cities – and functioning, disguised cities – dot the landscape, some more obvious than others. The previous high port of Corrix lies near the support. It, and the other cities, are usually considered to be either sacred areas or forbidden lands haunted by the long-dead. Neither of these situations reflect the truth. The support is just the support, nothing special about it, and the other ‘haunted’ areas are simply cities inhabited by the aliens who once shared the Ring with the humans, and in fact still do. Several species live in these cities- fyaeiarnae, khavvichthi, etc. There are even some humans who split off from their human compatriots. The cities, unfortunately, cannot bring in supplies from outside the Ring unless there are very specific circumstances met and they are sure that the experimental humans will not see the supply ship. Thus, efforts are made to keep the population stable within the alien-created cities and avoid accidental inbreeding.

When Corrix was seeded with wildlife after its terraforming was confirmed to be habitable for humans, it was seeded with species that had been ‘resurrected.’ These are primarily species that existed during the North American Land Mammal Ages of Earth, and included things such as American lions, dire wolves, teratorns, mammoths, giant ground sloths, phorusrhacids or terror birds, and other such megafauna. These creatures could not live through the changing climate of ancient Earth, but the environment of Corrix does not undergo such changes. It is much more suited to these creatures surviving and, consequently, the biosphere of Corrix looks much like that of North America during the Pliocene and Pleistocene epochs.

  1. Kalyrio

Of all of the Rings, Kalyrio is without a doubt the most developed. The original land is not visible anymore, not that there was much to see in the first place; industrialization has turned Kalyrio into one truly gargantuan city. All food is imported from other Rings and other parts of the galaxy, all plants brought in from other places- there are few native plants left on Kalyrio, and those that do exist are stunted and withered specimens forgotten somewhere amongst the streets and monorails and spaceports.  
Kalyrio Station is the hub of the space traffic of Iridere, and oversees all comings and goings of spaceships. Anyone entering the system has to register with Kalyrio Station or face harsh punishment. A subset of Kalyrio Station Security (K2S) is Corrix Watch, which is charged with making sure absolutely no one violates the space rules around Corrix, and that all Ringside interactions are monitored and scheduled carefully to avoid alerting the experimental humans.  
From afar, Kalyrio resembles a glittering diamond bracelet set in black metal. The lights of the hundreds of millions of buildings sprawled across both sides of the Ring make the outer side of the Ring look like a galaxy band of stars, and can be seen even from Xovan on a clear night. The cities are layered, starting from buildings carved out of the metallic ground and rising to skyscrapers connected by monorails and hovertracks. Smaller shuttles constantly whip around the spires of the buildings, and below everything a wide corridor has been hollowed out to make room for a Ringwide transit system. Frictionless hovertrains power through a vacuum-sealed subway tunnel the width of Old Earth’s Europe. Commuters board the trains in side tunnels, which are not vacuum environments, and wait as the train shuttles sideways on rails out into the main subway. Then it flies rather like an ordinary ship would in space, with the same type of vacuum engines- just smaller.

The atmosphere on Kalyrio is next to nonexistent, but this doesn’t affect the residents- they are almost always inside a climate-controlled environment, and they have tanks of air imported in to help with indoor air quality. They pay for all of these expenses- imported food, water, air- by housing some of the most successful entrepreneurs in the galaxy and charging ridiculous fees to visit the Ring. The Ring’s status as the K2S and Iridere traffic control does not hurt its opulence; the fines collected from port-skipping ships and offenses against the law help keep the Ring running.  
Some of the most notable features of Kalyrio include the Subway, Kalyrio Station Port, and the Glass Gardens. Kalyrio Station Port (KSP), as suggested by the name, is the central spaceport of Kalyrio, and takes up a good eighth of the Ring’s total surface area. Any incoming ships must register there before continuing to a port anywhere else on Kalyrio and most business transacted is done so through KS Trade Centre. KSP is also the landing point for many luxury cruise liners and a good deal of VIP private transports. Anyone rich enough to have a private ship to KSP can land there and then take a separate transport to wherever they need to be, coasting over and through the glistening, hermetically sealed skyscrapers and office buildings.  
The Glass Gardens are a series of greenhouses, and are the pride and joy of anyone on Kalyrio who – for whatever reason – takes an active interest in growing things. They stretch for miles and are made of layer upon layer of reinforced glass, clear enough to let Corelight through but strong enough to withstand the blast of a bomb. Inside the Gardens are plant species from all over the galaxy. Each region is divided into smaller houses for specific planets, or ecosystems on planets, or even just genii of plants found on a single planet. The Gardens, located of course on the inner side of Kalyrio, can be considered a city all on their own and it is in fact possible to become lost forever in the greenhouses. Several people have been missing for years.

  1. Averan  
In complete contrast to its industrial next-door neighbor, Averan is a Ring almost entirely devoted to green things. The Ring was developed initially as a single massive agricultural farmstead, but that was abandoned when the trees there- imported and already connected to each other through root systems- developed a sort of intelligence and decided they did not agree with the agendas of those overseers who watched from space. This intelligence spread quickly, and on Averan now there are many different forested regions, each with a set of plant-minds, each carefully tended by the inhabitants of Averan.  
Those inhabitants are a peculiar race of partially human beings known as _nyphelim_. The fyaeiarnae, the mammalian mangrove-dwellers of Eira’a, are by a strange and nearly impossible coincidence compatible with human physiologyThe fyaeiarnae are great biologists and explorers, sailing the stars in specially grown living starships.  
Their half-human offspring are somewhat different. Their human ancestry passed on their irrational ability to believe in gods and miracles, along with their intense emotive traits and illogical tendency to act without using any sort of intelligent thought to direct their actions. Their fyaeiarnae heritage gave them natural armor and claws, brilliant minds, and the legacy of those starships. The result is the species inhabiting Averan: the nyphelim, who are astoundingly intelligent, but who are also steadfastly devoted to the natural life of the Ring where they live. They can communicate with the plant-minds via bioelectrically powered interfaces, and will defend their forested homes violently. The plant-minds reward their subjects’ undying loyalty by twisting their growth, forming dwelling-places for their protectors. The nyphelim have taken up their fyaeiarnae ancestors’ tradition of creating living spaceships, but theirs are made of organic fiber, not flesh. These ships do not seem to function quite as well as the fyaeiarnae ones do.  
The cities on Averan are built out of living trees and situated within plant-mind forests. They are named as such; each plant-mind has several names that it can bestow upon the cities it grows.  
Averan does in fact have several spaceports. They resemble mountains, but where mountains are made of stone and ore these are hollow and made from trees and vines, twining over each other to create a sort of building capable of housing even the largest transport ships.

One must be very careful landing on Averan. If a ship’s engines burn any part of a port, every nyphelim connected to the plant-mind will know… and loathe everyone on board that ship. It is known that the nyphelim of Averan will react violently towards any transgression, a fact which must be carefully taken into account when attempting to do business there.

  1. Harbour

The name of the sixth Ring from the Core implies that it would be covered in water, and that assumption is completely justified. Harbour is almost entirely ocean, save two small continents near each other. Harbour’s human population exists only on those continents and on a few experimental underwater biodome settlements, as well as aboard many mobile, floating cities. The rest of the ocean is inhabited by native wildlife, though of course, none of the wildlife in the worlds of Iridere is truly native.  
Some of the life within Harbour’s great ocean dates all the way back from the late Cretaceous era. These creatures are not exactly the same ones as existed then, but they have been engineered to be almost exactly the same, or as close to it as possible. Thus, the oceans that are filled with fish are also chock-full of mosasaurs, megalodons, kronsaurs, archelons, crocodiles, and other denizens of the Cretaceous deeps.

Life on Harbour is just as dangerous as life on an open ocean would otherwise seem. The vast sea gives rise to superstorms that even the atmospheric regulators cannot fully disperse, and the floating cities must either move out of the way or be ripped apart by these typhoons. Maneuvering a mobile city around the Ring takes skill, practice, and years of training.

  1. Xovan

Ice-locked and windy, Xovan is the furthest Ring from the Core, a fact which is extremely obvious to anyone who has visited its frigid surface. The freezing atmosphere is partially directed by an out-of-control atmospheric regulator, meaning that most of the time there are catastrophic, predictably timed blizzards that occur exactly on a schedule down to the second. These blizzards cannot be halted, and no one is really sure exactly why they occur or how the weather patterns work. They only know that, from the data still being transmitted by Xovan’s regulators, they can extrapolate a timetable of blizzards and try to work their daily life around them.  
The people living on Xovan are clustered in small, huddled colonies and research bases, struggling to grow food in geodesic greenhouses and bearing the brunt of the weather. The storms are too intense to allow people to lay even telephone lines and the atmosphere is too turbid to support radio waves. This means that the only really efficient way of transmitting messages from one place to another is to have couriers carry it across the wastelands.  
Small shelters are built at regular intervals and couriers- also called stormrunners- are equipped with digital datapads that allow them to track the storms and get to safety before the next one hits. A good stormrunner can time their runs to jump between safehouses and get to a shelter before they get caught and snowblinded.  
Being snowblinded isn’t the only hazard to being a stormrunner. The frozen mountains and snow plains of Xovan are also home to a huge variety of beautiful and dangerous creatures, predators and prey alike. The larger predators to be worried about are things like the massive white saber-toothed bears, sleek and silent shadow leopards, and- when moving over the frozen oceans- the fanged battering whales or ice wyrms.  
Additionally, quite a few of the snowy mountains that surround stormrunners’ normal routes are unstable, and avalanches are always a worry. Fortunately the lack of a warm season on Xovan means that there is no freeze-thaw cycle for the most part, which eliminates the risk of avalanches containing massive chunks of broken-off rock.


	8. Conquering King: Ascension

The day of the last battle dawned clear and bright, and Micah wondered if that was going to be a problem for his scouts.

They’d spent a great deal of time integrating the rebel guerilla forces into the army. The army was pleased and annoyed both to finally understand what had been causing them so many problems. A lot of the imperial army cavalry was on horseback. Micah didn’t like that. He preferred his forces to be varied, and thus far more capable.

At the moment, Micah was murmuring softly to his mount and fitting her armor on. She was patiently standing by, flicking her ears occasionally, sometimes pawing at the ground.

“Easy, Mjoll,” Micah soothed, buckling on some of her neck protection. “We will have our chance today. You will taste blood, my dear.”

She swung her huge head and stared at him placidly from great golden eyes. He could tell that she wanted to fight today. It was in her nature.

Perhaps it would have been more convenient for Micah to have ridden a horse, or a bird, or some swift creature more suited for riding. The Ringleaders with their direwolves would be unique if Micah blended into the army. But he would never give up Mjoll, his great golden lioness, whom he had raised from a cub and trained to carry him. She was no small creature now; four meters long, a meter and a half high at the shoulder, solid muscle under a tawny coat.

He stared back at her and read her motions. Yes, she felt the oncoming battle. She wanted to kill, and he wasn’t going to stop her, not even in the proposed single combat. He would fight the king, but if both were dismounted, well, the king’s mount was hers to destroy.

“Micah?” Tor poked his head into the canvas tent, freezing when he saw Mjoll. The lioness had always made him nervous.

“Yes, Tor?” Micah picked up a shin guard and strapped it to Mjoll’s front leg, just above the paw. She wiggled it to settle it into place as Micah reached for the second one.

“The Ringleaders would like to know if you’re ready…” Tor eyed Mjoll nervously. “She doesn’t look, um, happy.”

“Mjoll is content.” Micah made sure Mjoll’s leg protection was properly attached, then nodded to himself and moved to her chest. “Since when are you the Ringleaders’ errand boy?”

“Since never,” Tor retorted, glowering at Micah. “I _happened_ to be in the area when they needed someone you would listen to.”

“Any messenger will do just as well,” Micah said, rolling his eyes.

“You’re not going to listen to ‘any messenger’ now, though, are you?” Tor folded his arms, raising one eyebrow.

“I _would_.”

“You would _not_.”

“It’s not that I don’t listen to them,” Micah countered, tightening the straps on Mjoll’s shoulder armor. “It’s that they’re too frightened of me to give me any messages.”

“That’s not necessarily true.”

Micah raised an eyebrow. “Any Imperial courier will not speak to me.”

“Because they watched you disembowel one of their own but a week ago!”

“_I_ did no such thing. Mjoll, however…”

Tor shifted uncomfortably as the lioness rumbled. Micah rubbed the top of her head with a smile. “Tor, help me with this, please,” he said, gesturing towards Mjoll’s single-piece side and flank armor. “It’s a bit heavy for one man to lift.”

Tor, while not pleased with the request, had done this before and obliged. He inched into the tent and slid his arms under one side of the armor. “Right.”

“Mjoll, down,” Micah commanded. The lioness sank to the ground patiently, and Micah pushed Tor back so they were each standing on one side of her long body. “Walk up… and lower it down. Thank you, Tor. Mjoll, up.”

The lioness stood again. Micah ducked beneath her belly to strap the armor in place, making sure it didn’t wobble or slide at all. Mjoll’s saddle was already strapped on and the armor fit neatly around it. Micah checked its fittings again anyway.

“Tell the Ringleaders I will be ready as soon as my mount is. They will have to wait a few minutes, but that shouldn’t be a problem. It’s not as if the King has anywhere to go.” He smirked.

Disdain for the King and amusement overrode Tor’s nervousness and he grinned in response. “True,” he said. “We’re in no rush.” He nodded to Micah and stepped out of the tent again, leaving him to it.

Micah picked up a facepiece and slid it over Mjoll’s wide snout, settling it into place around her ears and buckling it beneath her throat and in her mouth. She growled disdainfully, but he rapped it gently and murmured, “It’s for your own safety, you great silly thing.”

And was that it? It was. Micah took a few minutes to don his own armor. Mjoll’s plating was lightweight compared to normal cavalry armor, more chain and hide than plate, and Micah followed the pattern. His divine blessing would prevent him from being hit with arrows, but there was no point in taking chances. If he were hit, the mail would stop the arrows. It would also turn a sword’s blade should one break through to him.

“Ready?” Micah asked his mount. She rumbled eagerly, and he buckled his sword on and climbed into the saddle. “Out we go.”

Mjoll nudged the tent flap aside with her huge head and Micah ducked underneath it. They came out into the bright sunlight and Micah took a few seconds to clear the disorienting sunlight out of his eyes before observing the scene below.

His tent was atop a hill. Spread out below was the Imperial army, preparing for war, with a few… improvements.

Micah heard thumping feet and turned around as a phorusrhacid courier came skidding to a halt a couple meters away. The bird made an angry squawking noise and turns its head to glare at its rider.

“General Cyraxis, sir!” The terror bird’s sides were heaving. Clearly this man was in a hurry. “The sky-riders are ready for deployment.”

“Good. What else?”

“The battery units are still armoring up and the engineers are still checking over the trebuchet wheels.” The courier stopped again, but clearly had more to say.

Micah sighed. “And… what else?”

“And the Ringleaders are ready to ride, sir! They want you with them.”

“I’ll get there,” Micah said heavily, rolling his eyes. The Ringleaders certainly were annoyed, sending multiple messages to him in a matter of minutes. How impatient. “They can wait. I want to make sure… Can you still run?”

“Yes, sir! We’re not that tired.” The man patted his mount’s neck. It chirped a few times and glanced back at him, seeming irritated but also amused. “Right, Emana?”

“Find the pronghorn riders and send one to me.” Micah paused, thinking. “While you’re at it, send over a mastodon driver, the officer in charge of the saber strikers, one of the bear chargers, an imperial cavalry officer, and my lead teratorn scout. You just came from her; find her again, she should still be waiting to take off.” He paused, noting the look of dismay on the young man’s face. “You can send off another courier or two if you find them, you know. I just need section leaders to relay commands to their factions.”

“Alright, sir,” the courier said, bowing in his saddle. “I’ll get right on that! Ekatha, away!”

The phorusrhacid spun easily and went sprinting away, big tough feet leaving three-pronged footprints in the dust.

Micah waited on the hilltop. It wasn’t long before a pronghorn rider came bounding up the slope and stopped abruptly in front of him, rider bowing.

“Hello, General,” she said, stroking her mount’s head. Micah knew her well- her name was Alethia, and she was one of his officers. “You sent for me?”

“Yes. And some others… I will give instructions when they are all here.”

The teratorn showed up next, sweeping down out of the sky on twenty-six feet of feathered sails. It landed and a child climbed off, perhaps twelve or thirteen, and saluted Micah. Micah smiled and saluted back. The child’s name was Berlund, and she was extremely reliable.

Then came the bear charger and the cavalry officer, the striker, and finally the battery driver.

“Alright,” Micah said, when they were assembled. “Listen closely. The teratorns will relay signals back to this hilltop. You each will relay signals to your faction.”

He paused. They all seemed to understand.

“Now I’m assigning couriers here as well. They will carry messages for you- you are _not_ to go into battle. You are to keep yourselves low and stay out of arrow range.” As he spoke, Mjoll paced gently back and forth, muscles working smoothly beneath her tan hide. “I don’t care if it seems like your people are having trouble. They’ll have more trouble if they don’t have anyone to tell them what’s going on, and if you’re in the middle of their battle trying to interpret semaphore signals you’re going to get killed. Do you understand?”

A sigh from the striker rider. “Sir,” he said, “with all due respect, I should be with my men.”

“I’m aware.” Micah paused Mjoll’s pacing stared at the man until he looked away. “But you cannot. It’s what must be done to ensure the army’s success.”

He turned to Berlund, nudging Mjoll back into movement. “Send your condor and merrami riders out the furthest. They’ll be the most maneuverable and hardest to hit. The closer you get to our side, over here, the larger it’s safe to be. You stay back here, since you have the clearest signaling abilities.”

Berlund nodded. “Nyeri and I will hang back. You can trust us.”

Nyeri cocked its head and eyed Berlund sideways, then let out a low trilling sound. Berlund reached over and rubbed the giant bird’s massive head with a smile.

“Are you all clear on what you must do?”

“Yessir,” said Alethia, nodding her head in assent. “We’ll be right here. Where will you go?”

“To the front.” Micah smiled. “I’m going to challenge the King.”

He turned Mjoll around with a gentle touch on her reins and started down the hill. The faction leaders stayed where they were. He figured the bear was making that imperial horse a bit nervous, and laughed to himself at that.

He fetched his own pair of semaphore flags from an attendant, then met the Ringleaders. They were pacing around impatiently near the front of the army, muttering amongst themselves and making the prey animals nervous with the proximity of their huge wolves.

The short woman hurried over as soon as she saw Micah. “You’re extremely late,” she scolded, reining her direwolf in. “What took you so long?”

“Setting up a chain communication,” Micah replied, shrugging. “Open assault is not exactly my specialty, but I thought it would be the right thing to do.” He held his tongue; that was enough already. These forces belonged to the Ringleaders, and they had been doing this for far longer than he had. His intuition would not stand against their experience and he did not want to annoy them.

She shook her head. “Fair enough, but we’ve wasted enough time already. We need to move.”

“That I am perfectly content with,” Micah murmured, and leaned over slightly to catch a glimpse of his mount’s golden eye. “Mjoll?”

The lioness rumbled.

“Good.”

Each Ringleader rode a direwolf, all members of a small pack. The short woman rode the wolf who was generally in charge, a magnificent gray-white female with deep blue eyes. The wolves were armored, although the Ringleaders would likely not be in the forefront of the fighting.

The army began to move forward. Imperial foot soldiers and cavalry led the way, while Micah’s terror bird scouts swept ahead and back again over the hills to make sure their path was clear. Mjoll paced along easily in front. Micah held his head high, fully confident that they would be victorious. His helmet was tucked beneath his arm.

They left the hills behind and proceeded past a few outlying farm fields, heading along the main road to the city. The faint sound of the sea carried over the wind and pennants could be seen streaming from the towers of the castle on the cliffs. The wind from the sea whipped them back and forth in the morning light; blue pennants with yellow, the symbol of the current King.

The castle grew larger before them. Micah glanced back and saw, behind the cavalry, the battery- mastodons pulling along the army’s precious wheeled war trebuchets and catapults. Around them were the heavily armored mammoths, with spiked wires strung between their tusks and iron spines poking out from the ivory. They’d get rid of any charging cavalry or foot soldiers extremely quickly – a sweep from those tusks could easily kill.

Poking around the edges of the imperial cavalry, Micah saw the strikers, a force of small riders mounted on saber cats. Saber cats were extremely fast, though not over long periods of time, and very powerful. The strikers had short swords and were good at darting in to slash at enemies before disappearing again.

Before long, Micah saw defending trebuchets raised on the castle walls. Clearly the king wasn’t going to risk his guard out in open battle- there was no way, even with Micah’s smaller force, that they would win that fight. The king did have the parts of the imperial army that hadn’t abandoned him, and he was sending them to surround the walls. That could be an issue – with the recent shift in the power of the respective armies, it had gone from an unfair playing field to one that was almost evenly matched. Micah’s forces were a tad bit smaller than the King’s, and infinitely more varied and adaptable.

But the king also had elite direwolf riders. Those were a problem.

And, of course, if the king chose to come out…

Micah could see the defender wolves even from a distance- their forms stalking behind the militiamen, pelts of gray and black and white and reddish splotches against the gray walls of the castle. Micah narrowed his eyes. He would have to help take care of those.

His army wasn’t large. They had ten trebuchets with mastodon teams and twenty mammoths to help defend them, a force of two hundred seventy-five pronghorn riders, ninety strikers, thirty-seven assorted teratorn riders not including Berlund, one hundred eighty-six short-faced bear chargers, the Imperial horse cavalry and footsoldiers, the five Ringleaders, and Micah.

The imperial force had really boosted their abilities. But still…

The first wave of arrows came sailing from the castle walls. Micah realized that the position they were in was not advantageous; from this distance, they couldn’t retaliate with arrows, but the morning sea breeze carried the Imperial arrows further and would push the rebellion’s arrows away.

“Shields up!” Micah heard one of the footsoldier commanders yell, and there was a lot of clanking as the soldiers raised their shields above them to try and ward off the arrows. The mounted cavalry had more of a problem with that.

Micah was not concerned. He carefully set the reins down and settled his helmet on, completely ignoring rain of arrows. Around him, several footsoldiers fell, wounded or killed. He did not look at them. Mjoll paced on, unhurried, her soft feet barely leaving a trace in the grasses as she passed.

A phorusrhacid scout darted forwards, past Micah, and danced back and forth, trying to get a good count of the soldiers. It turned and streaked back towards Micah.

“General, sir!” the man riding the phorusrhacid panted, when Micah was within earshot. “There are sixteen direwolf riders in the king’s army. They’re all out here waiting for us.”

“What of the king?”

“We don’t see him yet.” The rider caught his breath. Micah glanced over and realized that this man’s terror bird was larger than most, and armored. Additionally, the man was carrying something that looked rather like a lance. “But we think he’ll be out.”

“Who are you?”

“Armed cavalry,” said the man. “The imperial army has a few of us. He stopped trying to train new terror bird riders and tried to kill us all so we turned on him.” he stroked his mount’s neck. “We’re here to serve with you, now.”

“Lovely. Thank you.” Micah glanced back towards the castle, squinting in the sunlight. “When do you think-“

He didn’t get to finish that thought. Ballista arrows came streaking out from the defending army, and Mjoll hurled herself to the right to avoid one that went through the exact place where her neck would have been. Micah crouched low against her to avoid falling off.

The cavalry phorusrhacid danced to the left to avoid the same arrow. The heavy bolts went tearing through the forces behind Micah.

That made him nervous. He couldn’t let his force break first…! The smaller arrows were not a problem for Micah specifically, and usually wouldn’t do much against heavily armored soldiers, though of course a few fell. The ballista, however… those could probably take Mjoll out, and she was not fully protected by Micah’s blessing. They could also potentially kill the Ringleaders’ wolves if they got a direct hit.

He glanced up. Above him he could see one of his teratorn riders. Quickly he dropped Mjoll’s reins and whipped out his semaphores, then cracked out a few letters of code – an instruction.

The condor rider picked it up. Micah could see flashes of color as the message was relayed back, then the rider urged their bird further up. The condor tilted and soared upwards, becoming smaller than ever. There were a long few minutes of silence.

And then Micah heard the air tear as five enormous stones went flying over his head, courtesy of the trebuchets. Most of them didn’t do anything, but one of them went crashing through the infantry of the opposing army. Micah’s still-advancing force was close enough now that waves of arrows were being fired regularly, and Micah could hear distantly the commands given on the other side to fire those arrows. The sea breeze advantage of the Imperial army was dwindling.

“God protect me,” he whispered, and drew his sword.

Another wave of rocks, five more, went flying overhead as Micah lifted his blade high, letting it catch the light, directly above him. Two of the stones made it through the King’s infantry this time, crushing soldiers as they went. A third managed to make it into one of the ballistae on the wall, destroying the delicate mechanism in a thunderous crash of shattering stone and wood.

Micah whipped his sword downwards. The imperial cavalry on his side recovered from the arrow storm and charged forwards, overtaking the infantrymen. While the king’s army was recovering, they swept in through the break in the pikemen lines.

Following them closely were Micah’s strikers. The saber cats pelted in at full speed and raced behind the infantry, swarming through to the King’s cavalry and dealing death blows to the horses there, slashing at throats and bellies.

But the King’s direwolf riders were causing chaos as well. He watched as one of them caught one his saber riders, ripped the rider out of the saddle, and threw the rider. The cat turned to try and attack, and the wolf dipped its snout underneath the cat, flipped it over, and tore at its stomach before turning to a new target.

Micah picked up Mjoll’s reins and urged her forwards. She broke into an easy lope, then a smooth run. An arrow bounced off her side armor. One of the direwolf riders noticed Mjoll and spurred his mount towards her.

Behind his helmet, Micah smiled.

The wolf, a big russet male, hurtled towards Mjoll at a bounding run. Its rider was a young man in a golden helmet.

“For the Crown!” he shouted. His sword was ornately decorated, with gold inlay running down the blade. Impractical. The symbol on his shield was the King’s symbol, rendered in enamel on steel. Also impractical, if pretty.

Micah hunkered down lower in his saddle and waited as Mjoll surged forwards towards her enemy. At the last second, she redirected her force sideways and slipped past the charging direwolf. Micah stretched his sword arm out and caught one of the saddle straps, shearing it cleanly away. The rider skewed sideways, shouting, and the direwolf yelped as it tripped on its own paw. Mjoll neatly turned and leaped back towards it. She cleared the distance in two bounds and landed with her front paws on the direwolf’s neck.

The rider pulled himself out in a momentous feat of strength and stumbled to his feet. “For my father,” he gasped, breath haggard, and parried Micah’s first blow. Mjoll pushed the direwolf into the mud and ripped at it with her claws and teeth while Micah stabbed again at the rider.

The second parry caught him off guard. This young man was a slightly better fighter than he’d expected. He narrowed his eyes, and finally understood who this was as he compared the rider’s face to those he had seen before: It was the last living prince of the royal family, the only one who hadn’t been killed in battle yet.

Micah remedied that with a swift stab to the shoulder and another slash to his unprotected throat. He actually caught the corner of the prince’s helmet and sent it spinning off into the grass, to lay next to the prince’s body as it fell to the ground. Mjoll growled furiously as she tore at the direwolf.

“Come now,” Micah said to the lioness, once the wolf was dead. “Let’s go.”

Reluctantly, Mjoll lifted her bloodied muzzle and turned to the battle again. Her shining armor was slightly dusty now, and spattered with a few drops of blood, but she looked all the more dangerous for it.

Out of nowhere, a charging destrier appeared, galloping towards Mjoll’s flank. Micah tried to turn her around, but the destrier was faster, and managed to kick her violently as he went by. Mjoll stumbled and began to favor her back left leg. Micah gritted his teeth.

The destrier went for another pass. Micah wheeled Mjoll around again-

A terror bird appeared from the side and struck forwards with a cone-shaped lance. It caught the destrier knight’s shoulder and he went spinning off his mount. The horse, no longer guided by its rider, went astray, galloping off in a random direction. The knight, on the ground, tried to rise, but the phorusrhacid rider spun his lance and stabbed it downwards, killing the knight.

Mjoll regained her footing, although she limped slightly. She was probably badly bruised, Micah thought. He rode over to the terror bird.

It was the same cavalry man from before. “Hello again,” he said, wrenching his lance out of the knight’s body. “How goes the war?”

“Decently enough. Thank you for the intervention,” Micah answered.

The warrior nodded and tugged on his bird’s reins, dashing away into the combat. Micah glanced around and directed Mjoll to the nearest battle that was going badly – another royal direwolf rider versus a bear charger that was caught away from its team. He managed to deseat the wolf, and the bear knocked the rider to the ground.

The charger thanked Micah, but had no time to respond because the castle gates opened and the king rode out.

He was mounted upon a massive stag-moose with a crown of many-pointed antlers, each point sharpened to a deadly spike. The king’s helmet mimicked this design, antlers sharp and gleaming in the sun, and he carried a greatsword. His mount was taller than Mjoll by a meter or so.

The stag-moose’s big hooves splayed over the wet grass and dirt. Imperial soldiers who noticed the King’s approach stopped firing and fell back, awed, waiting. Micah used one flag to signal a ‘wait’ command to his riders above; the catapult assault from the back of the army ceased.

The Ringleaders appeared, charging up out of the battle. They’d been fighting, apparently, as several of them had bloodied swords and half of the inventor’s crossbow bolts were gone.

“Your Royal Majesty!” shouted the short woman on her white wolf, the Ringleader spokesperson. “We of the people challenge you to single combat!”

The fighting continued as the king rode forwards. His mount was well-armored in silver steel plate, definitely better defended than Mjoll- but nowhere near as fast. The King’s armor was just as strong. His helmet obscured his face completely.

“You would challenge me?” the King sounded scornful. His voice, low and grating, carried through the high clashing of metal around him. “Which one of you?”

“I would,” Micah declared, urging Mjoll forward a few steps.

The enigmatic helmet tipped slightly sideways. “And the victor claims kingship?”

This was new. Micah wanted to glance back at the Ringleaders for confirmation, but he would not - he was not a child asking his parents’ permissions to fight here. “Yes,” he said, boldly.

The King laughed, a mirthless, gasping sound that echoed. “Very well,” he snarled, when he lowered his head again. “Kill me, and find out for yourself what a beast this world is. We will do battle.”

Behind Micah, the Ringleaders’ direwolves all raised their heads and howled. Those riders belonging to the King (who were not otherwise occupied) stalked forwards and did the same.

A large circular area was cleared in the middle of the battlefield. Around them, the fighting began to split as each side realized what had happened. The two forces drew away from each other to await the outcome of the conflict. The battlefield, which had been such a cacophony before, was now eerily silent.

The King urged his mount inwards and stopped, just inside the circle. Micah nudged Mjoll forwards and swung his sword in a swift circle to loosen his wrist a bit. Behind each contestant, the ranks closed; there was no going back for either of them.

The stag the King was riding dipped its head and snorted. The king drew his sword and started forwards. Mjoll responded by circling carefully, and the two watched each other. Micah caught a glimpse of the cavalry terror bird on the other side of the ring, eyes locked on the two fighters, lance dangling broken from one hand. Overhead, Micah’s teratorns circled, watching the battle carefully.

Mjoll feinted forwards. The king was not taken in by the act, and did not react.

A minute passed.

The king urged his mount forwards, and charged Micah. Micah waited until the last moment, then pulled Mjoll to the left and away from the King, reaching out with his sword arm. He didn’t catch the King or his mount, and they circled again.

A second charge. Mjoll dodged right this time, and Micah twisted to bring his arm across and managed to get a slash out along the stag-moose’s side. His sword skipped off the King’s armor and nicked the stag-moose’s flank before he was out of range; it bellowed.

The King retaliated by spinning the moose and attacking Micah. The sword tip flew true, but before it reached Micah it twisted to the side and bounced off into the air, missing Micah entirely but catching Moll’s spine. Fortunately, her mail protected her, and she didn’t seem to be hurt.

They parted again and circled, Mjoll stalking around the bloodied grass, a deep snarl rumbling in her chest. The stag-moose looked wary and Micah could see its eyes beginning to roll in fear.

Mjoll roared suddenly. The King’s stag flinched- and she leaped forwards, going for its throat.

The king reared back. Mjoll redirected and ducked underneath the beast’s flailing hooves, choosing instead to let Micah attack. He slashed his sword horizontally across the stag-moose’s belly, flaying a great deal of the skin and flesh off and almost losing his sword in the process as the blade caught in its thick hide and struck through into the abdominal cavity.

He ducked his head and Mjoll darted out from beneath the stag-moose, which landed unsteadily, stumbled, and toppled sideways, screaming in agony. Mjoll had to make an additional leap backwards as it bucked its head and raked the air with its sharp antlers. The King scrambled out of the saddle as his mount collapsed, unable to move now that its innards were spilling out. Mjoll rounded again and Micah raised his bloodied sword. The rumble in Mjoll’s chest had risen to a full-throated growl and her lips were pulled back, exposing her huge teeth.

“Do you surrender?” he called to the King.

“Never,” the King rasped.

Micah shrugged. He wouldn’t be able to reach the King from on Mjoll’s back, and he debated about hopping off to kill the King.

Before he could make his decision, the King pulled himself up and readied the greatsword. Micah raised an eyebrow, surprised in spite of himself – the King was going to try and fight a mounted champion on foot? Well… alright…

The King put up an admirable fight. Mjoll danced around him, but it wasn’t long before Micah managed to pinpoint a weak spot underneath the arm in the King’s armor and stab him through it, which caused him to drop his sword. Micah lined up his next attack as the King clutched at his side.

Mjoll took a few long strides forward and Micah ran the King through.

The King gasped. “So it will be you,” he rasped, one eye already unfocused; he must have hit the ground harder than Micah had thought. He spat out a glob of blood and spittle. “This land will eat you like it has me. And I will laugh from where I see you beyond my grave. Go on, fool. Take it.”

With that, the King’s head drooped, and he pulled the helmet off with one hand, unsteady. He dropped it to the ground, where it lay. His face, revealed, was pale, and his hair was matted down with sweat. He looked more tired than anything.

“I’m sure I’ll manage,” Micah said, and nudged Mjoll backwards, pulling the sword from the King’s torso. The movement pulled him forward, and he collapsed onto the ground, going limp. Micah peered at him. Was that it? That seemed to be it. Yes.

Once he was sure the former monarch was dead, Micah stood in his saddle and raised his sword. It glittered ruby and silver in the sunlight.

“I have defeated the King!” he shouted. “We have won the war.”

The Ringleaders watched him carefully. Mjoll stood proudly in the sun, her armor covered in dust and scratched by arrows, her paws and muzzle soaked with blood. The wind from the sea whisked away the stench of death from the battlefield, smelling of salt and seaweed instead. Micah pulled his helmet off and tucked it under his other arm, still holding his sword up.

Finally, the cavalry phorusrhacid stepped forward. The rider stepped off and knelt before Mjoll.

“Hail, King,” he said reverently, bowing his head. Micah paused for a moment, confused, and then remembered. _The victor claims the kingship._ The King’s words made more sense now, and he did not like the message they sent.

Infantry and cavalry alike knelt. Even the Ringleaders dismounted and knelt to him. The motion spread like a ripple; the army lowered itself, a glittering mass in the light, and the terror bird’s rider raised his lance and his voice.

“Hail to the King!”


	9. The Amelia: Biosurvey on Wenyrev

The _Amelia_ stayed on Ferolus for a few days before leaving for Wenyrev.

“We’ve got some new orders,” Vari chattered over the main comms, as they disengaged from Dock 23.4-42B and backed out into the main concourse. “We’re going to stop in on Wenyrev and pick up a few scientists, everyone, so don’t get freaked out when we land in the middle of the jungle. Alright? Great.”

Raleigh maximized her display and checked over the systems. Light blazed down through the port cavern’s access hole as the _Amelia_ rose steadily upwards, passing other ships as she went.

They popped out into the day and powered up, then shot up into the atmosphere, rapidly gaining altitude and escaping away from the hubbub of Synderon. Of this, Raleigh was glad. She didn’t particularly dislike the noise and activity, but she also didn’t exactly enjoy it.

Commander Charis was of the same mind. The commander stalked through the bridge behind the secondary pilot stations, and stopped near Raleigh’s station.

“Raleigh.”

“Yyyyes?”

“Any sign of that ship?”

The ghost ship. Raleigh’d almost forgotten about it. “Not right now,” she said, rapidly pulling up the scanners on her HUD. “But we just left the port. So it probably isn’t on us quite yet, if in fact it does follow us past here…”

“Well, keep an eye out for it. I trust that you’ll be able to spot that thing, even if no one else can.”

Raleigh was struck silent by the unexpected compliment. “Thanks,” she managed after a second, missing the button on the HUD and accidentally opening a completely irrelevant window.

“Glad to be out of here, hm?”

“Um. Yes, I am,” Raleigh replied, uncertain as to why the commander was wasting so much time talking to her. Surely she had more important things to do. “I- I don’t hate being in big cities, but I don’t really like it, either. I prefer being on the ship. Or on quiet planets. Or, uh, Rings.” _Shut _up,_ Raleigh,_ she told herself silently.

“Agreed, actually,” Charis said unexpectedly, staring at nothing a foot or two above Raleigh’s head. Raleigh shifted uncomfortably in her pit station. “But there’s really no place quite like this ship, is there?”

“No, ma’am.”

Charis sighed. “Please don’t call me that,” she said, uncharacteristically casual. _Or maybe she’s like that often, just not where I usually see._ “It’s strange.”

“What do you want me to call you then?” Raleigh regretted her words instantly.

“Charis will do. Or Elmina. Or commander. Just not ‘ma’am.’ It sounds like you’re addressing a bureaucrat.”

“Sorry, ma- eaaahp, commander.”

Charis sighed again. “So formal,” she muttered. “What’s the point?”

“We have to be formal. It’s polite.”

“There’s a difference between polite and obsequious,” the commander replied, now leaning on Raleigh’s chair. “Well, maybe not quite obsequious. At the very least sad.”

“Sad? Um… what’s that supposed to mean?” _Raleigh, stop. Stop! Talking!_

Charis shrugged, still not looking at Raleigh’s face. Her eyes roved over the HUD, dark brown reflecting the orange and white. “It’s sad that I can’t know my crew because they have to be polite with me.” She finally glanced down at Raleigh. “I’d love to know all of you. Right now the only person I really know is Vari.”

Raleigh wasn’t quite sure how to respond. She opened her mouth to say something, but abruptly, the commander frowned as someone called her personal intercom. From the tinny voice on the other end, it was Vari.

“Hold that thought, Navigator,” she said, standing. “Vari wants a word.” She turned and moved away, towards the cockpit.

“Leaving the atmosphere of Ferolus,” Vari called over the intercom. “And now we’re off to Wenyrev.” He fell silent.

Raleigh turned her eavesdropper on.

“Come on, darling,” Vari muttered, clearly to the ship. “Sorry we don’t have far to go. I know how much you love this… but we’re headed for another Ring, my love. We’ll be in and out of the atmospheres before we know it. You’ll like the maneuvering. Oh, hey, Commander. So, you know you can’t-“

The eavesdropper signal cut out in a flare of static.

Raleigh frowned. Had Vari done that?

The _Amelia_ pushed her way out of the atmosphere, roaring upwards with a trail of blue light. Raleigh felt the ship clear the atmosphere and bump upwards, then curve away from the inner side of Ferolus, heading past the Core in a clear streak of light. She pulled a wide arc and came in around the inner side of Wenyrev, coasting over the atmospheric layer.

Vari ran through the landing sequences again, and the _Amelia_ dipped into the atmosphere, nosing the clouds aside to lower herself down over the jungle.

Raleigh scanned behind them as they entered the atmosphere. Sure enough, she picked up small clouds of irregular emissions. But… they were all over the atmosphere. Was there more than one ship? Had they reached Wenyrev before the _Amelia_ had? Why would they go there before her, if they were following her? Were they even following her, or was this coincidence? It didn’t make any sense. Raleigh recorded the readings and saved them in a small new database.

In the center of the equatorial band, the _Amelia_ spotted a cleared area of jungle and dropped altitude, banking to spiral downwards until she hovered over an open field. From there Vari lowered her carefully down, trying not to scorch the grass.

“Prepare for landing,” Vari said, folding the _Amelia_’s wings up so they wouldn’t be damaged. He extended the ship’s emergency landing skids and cut her engines a little bit at a time, until she settled gently onto the soft ground. “Aaaaand… we’re down.”

Raleigh’s personal comm clicked on. “Check the weight distribution on the skids, would you? And make sure the pressure from the shields is distributed. I don’t want us sinking into the soil and having to uproot half a field to lift off.”

“Yes, sir,” Raleigh said, and pulled up the readouts on her HUD. The pressure was a little uneven, and she adjusted the shield in certain areas to spread it out more evenly. “Ship’s stable, sir.”

“Thanks, Secondary.” Vari whistled to himself and disconnected. Raleigh heard him over the ship’s intercom a second later. “We have landed. It’s safe to walk around now, you won’t fall over. At least, not because of anything I do.”

Raleigh snorted and closed down her display, leaning back in her chair. She was satisfied with this.

About an hour later, she was no longer satisfied.

Commander Charis picked her and a few other crewmembers to head out to pick up their scientist passengers. They were close to Venetia Research Base, where their scientists were supposed to be waiting.

Of course, the research base was a mile away, and no one was interested in hiking along a roughly cleared path through the jungle. They had a ground transport vehicle within the _Amelia_’s holds for a reason.

They brought it out, rolling down the _Amelia_’s rear cargo ramp. The vehicle was more like a tank or a rover than a car, armored on all sides even as it was open on the top. It seated eight people comfortably- there would be room enough for the scientists and equipment they were picking up.

“In,” Charis ordered. Raleigh sat passenger while the commander drove. The path from the landing field to the base was bumpy and covered in stumps and broken branches, making the drive rough. Raleigh had to be careful not to end up with whiplash.

The research base came into view. It was settled in a patch of semi-cleared land, surrounded by large trees, with moss dripping off the roof and algae covering most surfaces with the exception of the windows and observatory dome. The half-tank rolled to a halt, and Commander Charis parked it and climbed over the side.

“Looks like this is it,” she murmured, glancing around. “But where…?”

A small door set into one side of the research base opened, and someone poked their head out. Raleigh got the impression of a gray-green patterned helmet, with only curious eyes poking out, on top of a half-armored body wearing, along with the armor, dark green clothing. Underneath the armor, the being’s skin had a purple cast to it.

“Oh!” they said, and suddenly they were not wearing a helmet at all. Raleigh realized that this was a fyaeiarnae, and that that was not armor, but natural plating that was part of their body. The helmet-like face plating had retracted somewhat, sliding backwards to rest behind the ears and jaw, and about halfway back on the crown of the head. The face beneath where the plating had been was extremely humanoid, with vivid violet skin and pale blueish eyes.

“Who are you?” The commander called, from her place next to the half-tank.

The fyaeiarnae stepped forwards, still holding the door with one hand. From what Raleigh could see, she was female. “I’m Dr. Tessana Vivaki,” she called, giving a little half-bow. “I assume you are Commander Charis?”

“That’s right. This is Venetia Research Base, right?”

“Yes.” Dr. Vivaki glanced back into the building. “I… do not know where the other scientist who is to accompany me is. He was supposed to come from another base to this one today, but has not yet arrived-“

As if on cue, some of the bushes rustled and another fyaeiarnae pushed his way through, batting branches out of the way. “Excuse me,” he said, stumbling out of the greenery, “did someone call?”

Once he’d straightened up and brushed himself off, Raleigh was impressed by his appearance. He had the same plate-like armor as Dr. Vivaki did, but his was lighter, as was his skin. His eyes were a deep, vibrant sapphire flecked with silver, and his skin was patterned with designs of transparent white against the lavender; lacy tattoos that curled delicately over his hands and arms.

Dr. Vivaki stared at him for a few seconds, expression completely neutral, then turned back to the commander. “He has arrived,” she informed them flatly.

“So I see.” The commander glanced over disdainfully at the newcomer. “Your name?”

“I am Dr. Misalu Anulohr,” he said, bowing. “And I assume you are the honorable Commander Elmina Charis?”

“I am Commander Charis,” the commander said carefully, “and you may address me as so.”

“I had no idea you would be so beautiful,” he murmured, staring at her.

She folded her arms. “Thank you for the compliment. Gather your materials and prepare to board the _Amelia_. We have a biosurvey to conduct.” With that, she turned towards her party. “Tereiti, Keruil, Vonmindoh, help the doctors with their equipment.”

Raleigh jumped, startled by the use of her last name. The commander stood by and tapped her foot on the ground as the other party members jumped out of the half-tank and hurried into the base. Dr. Vivaki stepped aside to let them by, then hurried in after them.

The commander stared at Misalu, who was just standing in one place. “Lost, Dr. Anulohr?” she snapped. “It would be very helpful of you if you would help the crewmembers gather what equipment you needed and tell them where to put it.” She paused, glancing over at Raleigh. “Tereiti, assist.”

“Right, yes, commander!” Raleigh said, and followed her crewmates into the building. Misalu narrowed his eyes, but followed her.

He had almost no equipment, which was a little odd, but Raleigh didn’t find it her place to mention it. Dr. Vivaki certainly made up for the deficit by having enough equipment to require the half-tank to take two trips.

“Is all of this really necessary?” Hans Vinmondoh panted to Raleigh as they passed by each other at the entryway.

“No idea,” she replied, moving out of the way to allow him to fit his box through the door.

Dr. Anulohr rode the half-tank back to the _Amelia_ the first time, since he didn’t really have much other than a few bags with him. Raleigh drove, and Hans went with, and both of them were very suspicious of him.

He leaned back against a pile of Dr. Vivaki’s equipment. “So,” he began, conversationally. “This commander of yours.”

“Commander Charis.”

“That’s her.” He sighed. “Is she taken?”

“Er,” Raleigh replied, completely taken aback. She actually looked over at him in shock and drove over a larger-than-normal stump, causing the half-tank to judder slightly. “I- I have no idea. Sir.”

“Oh, please,” he sighed. “Call me Misalu. I really do hate it when people are formal with me. Unless they’re supposed to be. But I think we can all be familiar with each other, hmm?”

Raleigh pursed her lips. “Very well, sir,” she said pointedly, keeping her eyes on the pathway.

Misalu sighed. “There you go again.”

Hans glanced over at Raleigh. She sent him a look containing her current feelings for Misalu, which included dislike and distrust and not much else. Not a good start for the fyaeiarnae scientist.

The half-tank rolled into the clearing where the _Amelia_ rested, and Misalu sat up, suddenly interested.

“Ah,” he murmured. “This is your ship, then?”

“Yes, sir.”

He looked her over once or twice, nodding to himself, but didn’t say anything.

Raleigh halted the half-tank at the base of the _Amelia_’s ramp and climbed out, clicking on her personal intercom as she did so and radioing the inside of the ship.

“Mendoz here.”

“Send a few crew out to pick up all of this and show Dr. Anulohr where to set up. Commander’s orders,” Raleigh told her. “We can convert some of the empty med bay areas into a workstation for him and the other scientist pretty quickly. Do that now, would you?”

“Of course.”

The _Amelia_’s aft ramp lowered down and a few idle crewmembers hurried out to unload the half-tank and show Misalu in.

Once all of the equipment had been removed from the half-tank, Raleigh told Hans to stay behind and took it back to Venetia. Keruil, the commander, and Dr. Vivaki were waiting.

Raleigh felt she had to warn the commander of Misalu’s strange and quite frankly discomforting attitude. She clicked on her personal comms and tried to raise the commander- and almost instantly succeeded, to her surprise.

“Watch out for Misalu,” she muttered, trying to make it seem like she wasn’t saying anything. “There’s something really off about him.”

“I can tell,” Charis murmured in response. “Trust me, I’m going to keep my distance.” She sounded about as disgusted as Raleigh had imagined.

The commander drove the half-tank back to the _Amelia_, once everything was loaded in. As they approached she narrowed her eyes and leaned forwards; sounds of shouting could be heard from the clearing ahead. They rounded the last bend and emerged into the cleared area in time to observe a lively argument between Vari and Misalu.

“_What are you_ _doing to my ship?!_” Vari shouted. He was standing by the nose of the _Amelia_, fists clenched, absolutely livid.

“Oh, no,” the commander sighed into Raleigh’s comms. “This can’t be good.”

Misalu was leaning against the nose, rubbing his forehead.

“If we’re going to conduct a biosurvey,” he said, in a tone of voice that indicated he’d said this many times already, “we’re going to need to outfit your ship with the proper equipment. That means we have to attach this to her hull-“

“I don’t care _what_ you think you need to attach to her, it’s not going to happen!”

“It’s a necessary process, it’s part of the-“

“You make one move with that bolt gun and I swear to God-“

Chief Engineer Elliot joined the fray. “If you alter the aerodynamic shape of the _Amelia_ you’re going to change everything about the way she flies in the atmosphere, which is where she has to _be_ for a biosurvey.”

“You’re _condoning_ this?!” Vari shrieked, turning on Elliot.

“I am not going to change her shape!” Misalu turned towards the engineer, spreading his hands out. “I just need to place a few instruments on the ship in order for us to take accurate readings of the Ring’s surface.”

“Sir, we actually-“ Elliot shrank back, regretting his decision to speak up.

“’Place a few instruments?’” Vari moved so he was shouting at both Misalu and Elliot. “The hell you will!”

“Vari, please calm down-“

“It’s not like I’m going to weld anything to her-“

_“You’d better not be!”_

Elliot took a step back from the infuriated Vari. “I- I’m not saying we should-“

Charis raised her pistol in the air and fired three shots. The rapport startled all three men into silence, and they guiltily looked over at her. She stared them down as she slowly lowered her gun and slid it back into its holster.

“Gentlemen, what are we having a discussion about?” she asked calmly, hopping out of the tank and striding up to the group.

“This _scientist_,” Vari began, spitting out the word like a curse, “wants to attach a number of ‘instruments’ to the _Amelia_’s hull. He wants to bolt them on like pieces of modern art!”

Misalu held up his hands. “Now, now, hold on,” he said, frowning. “That’s not what I said at all.”

“That’s another thing!” Vari took a few steps forward, forcing Misalu to press himself back up against the _Amelia_’s hull. He seemed too well-trained to armor his face, but Raleigh could see the armor plating click into place on his arms and torso, protecting him from any attack. “You didn’t even _ask_ to do this! You just came out here and started pinning things in place. You don’t do that. Not on this ship. You don’t do _anything_ to my ship without asking me first.”

The commander intervened. “Vari,” she murmured, gripping his shoulder. “Vari. Come on. Step off.”

Reluctantly, Vari allowed himself to be pulled away from Misalu, who looked legitimately frightened by the pilot. Charis drew him away a distance and spoke to him quietly, while Misalu inched away from the two of them, swallowing. The rest of the crew in the transport disembarked and started unloading equipment into the _Amelia_.

Raleigh glanced over and almost felt sorry for Misalu as he stood next to the ship, looking lost. She stepped over to him. “Perhaps I neglected to mention, sir,” she said quietly, “not to anger our pilot.”

“I didn’t _do_ anything,” Misalu muttered, casting strange, disturbed glances over at Vari. “He just appeared out of _nowhere_…”

Raleigh had to stifle her amusement. Vari looked up at the sky, then back down at the commander, then over at Misalu and Elliot. He still seemed irate, but at least he wasn’t shouting. She murmured something else to him, and he ran a hand through his hair and nodded, frowning.

The commander patted his shoulder, then led the way back over.

“Explain your actions,” she said curtly to Misalu.

“Your purpose here- as I was informed- is to perform a biosurvey of this entire planet. That’s why you’re picking us- and by us I mean Dr. Vivaki and I- up. For our help with the survey. Dr. Vivaki specializes in biological studies, and I specialize in technology.” He spread his hands again, trying to look nonthreatening even with his claws.

The commander sighed, looking between Misalu and Vari. “We are in fact here for a biosurvey. Dr. Anulohr knows this, because we told him,” she said to Vari. “_However_, we did not tell him that we have highly advanced equipment already installed beneath the _Amelia_ and therefore do not need him to attach anything of his own to the ship. He didn’t know.”

“Misalu, you should have asked permission before attempting to modify the ship in any way. Vari, you overreacted. Apologize to each other like adults and let’s go.”

Vari and Misalu stared evenly at each other for a second. Vari still looked righteously infuriated.

“I will not attempt anything without asking first,” Misalu tried.

“I won’t get angrier than I need to,” Vari replied.

They stared at each other for a few more seconds. Charis shook her head. “That’s as close as we’re likely to get,” she sighed. “Dr. Anulohr, pick up your things. Both of you get in the ship. Elliot, what are you doing out here?”

“Nothing!” the engineer scrambled away.

Raleigh was impressed by the commander’s peacemaking skills. “Nice one, Commander,” she whispered into her personal comms.

“Thanks,” Charis answered dryly. “I have three brothers. Diplomacy comes in handy. Take the transport up into the ship.”

“Of course.” Raleigh fetched the half-tank and drove it up the _Amelia_’s ramp. The rest of the scattered crew poured back into the ship and took up their places.

Raleigh took her seat in the secondary pits, then almost out of habit flicked on the eavesdropper. It was working again – no indication of what had caused its issue earlier. She pressed the comm output against her ear to hear what was going on while people walked past her on the bridge.

“Commander, with all due respect, I think this was a terrible idea,” was the first thing Raleigh heard Vari say.

“I know you do.”

“So why are we-“

“Orders are order, Vari, and there’s really not much we can do about that.”

A heavy sigh. “I know. I know- oh. Hello.”

A pause, and then:

“This is really quite the ship.” Misalu’s voice. Somehow, Raleigh had missed him moving up through the bridge. “Almost as beautiful as her captain.”

“Thanks,” Vari said instantly.

“Cute.” The commander’s voice could have frozen Ferolus. “Are we ready?”

“As we’ll ever be.” Vari took over the comms. “Prepare for takeoff, everyone.”

Raleigh turned off her eavesdropper and concentrated on her own work, messing with the kinetic barriers while the ship powered up and the subjets pushed her up away from the soft ground.

They lifted off, not managing to avoid scorching the grass, and sped up and over Venetia Research Base. Once they had reached a decent height, Vari engaged their survey materials.

“Starting tacking strafe,” he called over the intercom. “Setting the _Amelia_ in proper route… alright. The survey should last about three days, so get comfortable, everyone.”

The _Amelia_ pushed her way slowly through the clouds, scanners running carefully over the green land below, and over the swamps and oceans as they passed over them. Raleigh searched behind them, with scanners and cameras.

Below, the biosphere was vibrant and interesting. That data passed through her scanners and fed to other consoles on the ship. But what interested her were the residual particles in the atmosphere.

Traces of engine emissions eddied through the air currents, but as always, the _Amelia_’s ghost companion was impossible to see.


	10. Snowblind: Drift

Arkane stayed in the Tyto Colony postal center for a couple weeks. They were starting to be worried about the silence from Ceos, in terms of ‘we want our stormrunner back,’ and were about to send a message in that direction to check for instructions of requests, when the news came to them instead.

They were carefully fixing a netting break in their left snowshoe when the door to the postal center slammed open. Arkane, in the back rooms, did not see the new entrant, but heard the howling of wind and the gasping of someone dazzled by bright light and able to breathe out of the cold.

“Hello!” said a bright voice from the front- that would be Anatol Casey, the intern at the post office, who was obsessed with becoming a stormrunner himself. He had been badgering Arkane for the last two weeks, and Arkane was seriously hoping someone would send for them soon.

“Where’s Arkane?” they heard, shouted in a hoarse bark from up front. “Need…”

“Uhhhh- oh, god! ARKANE!”

With a sigh, Arkane tucked the needle into the frame and, standing, set their snowshoe aside. “What is it?” they called, leaning towards the hallway to ensure that their voice would carry.

“There’s a guy out here and he’s dying!”

That was something Arkane hadn’t heard before. They frowned and hurried out to the front.

The sound of wind grew louder; the door was still hanging open. Casey hovered nervously around someone who was now sitting leaning against the counter, curled around themselves. Their coat was half white, half red, the latter color a flower-petal pattern centered on a small dark hole the shoulder.

“Oh,” Arkane said, observing the scene.

“Do something!” Casey fluttered ineffectively around the downed courier. “I don’t-“

“Please move,” Arkane asked quietly. Casey shot sideways out of the way, and Arkane knelt next to the courier. “Who are you?”

“Sasinawa Ursa,” said the figure, and with a shock Arkane realized that the deep voice belonged to a fierce-looking woman with jet-black hair. She gasped for breath and clutched at her shoulder.

“Easy, now,” Arkane murmured. “Casey, would you close the door, please? Let’s get that coat off you.” As Casey closed the door, Arkane wondered where they’d heard the newcomer’s name before, and remembered. “Ah! Casey, actually, could you please go out and find Sasinawa Orca for me? I’m sure she would like to know of her sister’s arrival. And after that, please fetch for me the colony’s physician.” They paused. “Actually, fetch the physician first. They may be more useful in this situation.”

“Right away!” Casey snatched his coat up and hurtled out the door.

Arkane helped Ursa out of her coat, trying to be as gentle as possible. She kept having to stop to breathe, and Arkane was worried Ursa would die before she could explain why she was here.

Minutes later, the door flew open and cracked against the wall, and Orca stormed in, furious and frantic. She looked around frantically and rushed over when she saw her sister leaning up against the wall. “Ursa!” She cried out, falling to her knees. “Ursa, what are you-“

“One moment, please,” Arkane said quietly. Orca stopped mid-sentence and scooted back. Arkane had found the wound that was causing all the bleeding, a neat bullet hole punched completely through Ursa’s shoulder, and tried to pad and staunch the bleeding on both sides. They weren’t an expert in first aid, although they had some basic knowledge…

Fortunately, the door opened yet again and Casey brought Tyto Colony’s doctor in. The doctor saw Ursa and immediately took complete control of the situation.

After forty minutes of confusing activity, Ursa was bandaged and awake, too intent on delivering her message to sleep. Arkane was ushered into the room by the annoyed doctor.

“Talk quickly. She needs to rest.”

Unbidden, Orca and Casey followed Arkane. No one stopped them.

Ursa glanced over as they entered. “Finally,” she growled. “That woman kept trying to make me sleep.”

“That woman saved your life,” Orca snapped.

“Arkane, are you listening?”

“I am.” Arkane saw that the temper ran in Orca’s family.

“Just before you left, some… people started pressuring us- the researchers at Ceos- to sell some of our, um, experiments to them. We refused, and we thought that would be the end of it, but it wasn’t.” She paused for breath. “And then right after you left, they cut off our short-range comms and sort of laid siege to Ceos. I got out just a bit ago. I had to steal a storm timer, and I barely got out before they raised the alarm. They couldn’t track me, though. I went out just before a storm and hid in that cave just outside the base gates.” She chuckled. “You should’ve seen those shuttles go whirling around in the blizzard winds. Hah! Serves them right.”

She paused, coughing. Orca fetched a glass of water handed it to her sister.

Ursa took a drink and set the glass down again, letting out a breath. “I brought the message here because I knew you went here and would probably still be here. You’re our best stormrunner. Probably the best on the Ring, Arkane. If anyone can do this, it’s you.”

Arkane felt a slight chill. “What do you need of me?”

“You need to go to Ceos and steal our research. Then you need to take it to Hallowtone.”

Arkane didn’t quite know how to respond to that. Hallowtone was a research base that had been built up near the top of a glacier. It was used for especially dangerous research, so that at a moment’s notice a failsafe could be activated where nuclear charges would go off, liquefying parts of the glacier, and portions of the base or indeed the entire thing could be sunk miles deep into the ice.

“I wasn’t aware that Hallowtone was still active,” Arkane said carefully.

“Oh, it is.” Ursa nodded. “We haven’t communicated with them recently. But that’s how we know they’re alright. They would have sent up the emergency beacon and jettisoned their research records if they’d had to sink the base. I guess our stuff is sensitive enough that it belongs there now.”

“Can I actually get to Hallowtone?”

“Yes. I can tell you where it is.”

“Wait, wait,” Casey interrupted, looking back and forth between them. “Hallowtone is really, really cool, but back up. You’re going to steal something from Ceos?!”

“Sort of.” Ursa sighed. “The researchers will know it’s you, Arkane. But when I left, the, err, unfriendly forces had subjugated Ceos. Most of the researchers don’t know anything about the experiment they’re looking for. They’ve captured all those that do, except a few. Of course there are some that got away. They’re trying to lay low.” She shook her head. “You’ll have to sneak in and find someone that knows about the project. Then you’ll have to get to the project, collect it, and get out without informing anyone. Then you have to make it to Hallowtone without being caught.” She shook her head. “And believe me, you are not safe if you make it out of Ceos.”

“If?!” Casey was horrified.

“When were you wounded?” Orca asked. “How did you get hurt?”

“Shuttle strafing run got me,” Ursa grunted, shifting position. “I fell down and pretended to be dead. They didn’t bother checking. They should have.” She let out a harsh laugh.

“I’m glad they didn’t.” Orca took her sister’s hand. “I prefer you alive.”

“Why is this project so important?” Casey asked. “I mean, you got shot to tell us about it. What is it?”

Arkane sighed. “Casey, could you please leave the room?”

“No!” To Arkane’s surprise, Casey put his foot down. “Actually, I won’t. You’re a really good stormrunner, but this is gonna be a hard mission, and I’m coming with you.”

“…what?”

“I’m going to be a courier. I might as well start now! But I want to know what I’m getting into.” He turned back to Ursa, ignoring a baffled Arkane. “What’s this project all about?”

“It… well…” Ursa sighed. “I may as well tell you, since you’re going to be fetching it. The fyaeiarnae developed organic spaceships using bioelectricity, and the nyphelim invented organic interfaces to communicate with the plant-minds on Averan. We took the interface and… well, altered it. To make it simple, we created a creature that can communicate telepathically with humans, defend itself against predators, and fly through the snowstorms.” She looked at Arkane. “This would take every stormrunner out of danger, permanently. But it would also eliminate stormrunners… if the beasts functioned perfectly.”

Arkane wasn’t sure how to feel about this.

“Oh,” said Casey, deflating. “Well.”

“Note that I said if,” Ursa continued quickly. “They would have to be flawless, and they certainly aren’t. They need to be fed foods packed with specific chemicals that allow them to produce gases that let them fly, we haven’t managed to give them any sorts of natural defense mechanisms, and the beasts will only communicate with each other or with a given handler. The handler has to impress the creature when it hatches. Otherwise it won’t speak to them.”

Orca chewed on her lip. “And if the… who is trying to get these from you?”

Ursa sighed again, giving up on secrecy. “It’s Shadowside,” she said dejectedly. “See… we used fyaeiarnae biotechnology to create our project. We didn’t think some of the space travel tech would carry through, but it did. The creatures have the ability to recirculate oxygen through their systems while simultaneously expelling other gases, which can direct them in a vacuum environment. And their skin is tough enough to withstand the pressure difference.” She paused to take a few breaths. “With enough preparation, they can travel from one Ring to the next through space.”

That certainly made a difference in things.

Casey sighed gustily, frowning, and ran his hand through his hair. It did nothing- the short brown strands flopped back to exactly where they were- but it seemed to help him think. “I think we should get them anyways,” he said finally. “Even if I’ll never get to be a stormrunner. Shadowside’s really evil…”

Arkane had not had much experience with Shadowside, but if Shadowside was doing things like taking over Ceos, they couldn’t be good… “I agree,” they said, after a moment. “I’ll do it. I’ll go to Ceos.”

“It wasn’t a question in the first place, it was a goddamn order,” Ursa snapped. “But thanks for your cooperation anyways.” She turned to Orca. “Orca, you’re going with.”

“What?”

“You’re one of the foremost security officers for Tyto. You’ve told me about your mobile weaponry, about you making the other officers train with it. You’ll be the security for this mission. I know you’ve never actually carried messages, but I trust that Arkane here can keep you safe from the weather if you keep them safe from the wildlife and the Shadowside operatives. Got it?”

“I… okay,” Orca said, stunned into silence for the first time that Arkane knew of. Ursa’s eyes were the same shape as Orca’s, but not quite as dark. Her expression was compelling.

“As for you,” she said, glancing at Casey. “I don’t know what use you would be on this trip.”

“I’m very useful!” Casey argued instantly, frowning fiercely. “I- I can do lots of things!”

“Such as?”

“Such as repair your storm watch.” Casey glared. “Can you do that? Without factory-made spare parts? I don’t think so!”

“What else can you do?” Ursa’s tone was curious, but also mocking. Arkane couldn’t tell if the mocking was serious, but then again, the words weren’t directed at them.

“Oh, loads,” Casey replied. “Don’t you doubt me! I, I can hack things. And hotwire things. And disable alarms! I’m really good at that. And, umm… I can make electronic grenades. And ones that send out electromagnetic pulses to overload other electronic systems.” He fiddled with his hands as he spoke.

“That’s… oddly specific,” Orca murmured. “Where did you learn to do that?”

Casey shrugged.

“Alright. You might be useful,” Ursa said, nodding as she looked at Casey.

“That’s all? I might be useful? Thanks,” Casey muttered.

“I am guessing we must leave as quickly as possible,” Arkane stated, looking over at Ursa. “Correct?”

“Right.” She coughed a few times, drawing everyone’s attention. “Watch the storms. You’ll be able to make it, Arkane. You’ll be able to lead your team to safety.” She turned her head slightly, sinking back against the bed she was laid on. “Go soon. I don’t know how much longer the others can hold out…”

As if summoned by Ursa’s fading strength, the doctor appeared. “Get out,” she said, not unkindly. “She needs rest. She’s told you what you need to know. Shoo!”

The three left. Arkane went back to their broken snowshoe and fixed it in silence. Orca and Casey followed silently and waited.

“Well?” Orca finally said, once Arkane had tied the replacement mesh into place and tested it out.

“Well, what?”

“When are we going?”

Arkane reached over the table and picked up their storm watch. The next storm was to occur in twenty minutes, and then there was an hour and a half break until the next blizzard. “After the next storm. That’s in twenty minutes. Meet me outside this station after that and we will go.”

Orca pelted out the door and vanished. Casey disappeared into the depths of the postal center, and Arkane stayed where they were.

The blizzard came and went, and Arkane readied themselves, making sure they had new canisters on their respirator. They packed up all of their possessions and headed out to the front.

Casey was waiting impatiently by the door. “Let’s go,” he muttered, shifting from foot to foot. He was wearing a long, tan coat, fringed at the hems and sleeves with fur. Underneath that, though…

“What are you wearing?”

More uncomfortable shifting. “I… It’s warm.”

“I see.”

Casey’s outfit consisted of a form-fitting suit that looked like it was made of leather or some kind of animal skin. “It’s shadow leopard fur,” he explained, going bright red.

“Mm-hm.”

Arkane pushed the door open and held it for Casey to exit. Outside, Orca was waiting.

She took one look at Casey and burst out laughing. “Oh my god,” she managed, leaning against the wall. “Are you serious?!”

Casey tried to say something and failed, staring at the snow-covered ground in embarrassment.

“Leave off,” Arkane said gently. “They’re actually quite nice. I tried one on once.”

“I got it as a present,” he whispered, almost to himself. “For being assigned to stormrunner training.”

“A thoughtful gift.” Arkane glanced over at Casey, startled. Apparently his family- or whoever had given him the suit- was as excited as he was about someday becoming a courier.

Orca shook her head, still recovering from her laughter. “All right, all right. I’ll stop.” She was wearing the same coat Arkane had seen her in before, and had a small bag with her, strapped onto her back.

“Are we ready?” Arkane’s datawatch already had the route to Ceos laid out in it.

“Yes. I’m going to beat the shit out of whoever shot my sister.”

“I will help, I think? As long as you don’t hurt me,” Casey said.

Arkane took a breath. “Well,” they said. “We might as well go.” They pulled their mask up and settled it over their nose and mouth, breathing few it a few times to make sure it was working.

Orca gestured towards the distant mountains. “Lead the way.”

Arkane’s watch beeped gently. They glanced down at it, oriented themselves, and started out through the colony, passing by buildings and new snowdrifts that had piled up since the last storm.

And then it was out of the colony, over the shimmering plains that stretched to the west of Tyto Colony. Back the way Arkane had come originally.

They knew it was not going to be an easy journey. The run from Ceos to Tyto was filled with all sorts of interesting things, although it wasn’t nearly as dangerous as some of the other runs… such as the run to Hallowtone.

Wind blew, sending writhing lines of snow-dust skidding over the plains. Arkane bent their head into the gusts and forged onwards. Their team followed behind.

“To Ceos,” they whispered.


	11. Shadowside: Averan

The surface of Averan’s outer side was completely dark. No fires, no electric lights… nothing. The dark forests that covered the Ring’s surface swayed gently in the Ringwide winds that periodically swept across the deep emerald ocean.

A single ship hovered in orbit.

“Sir?”

“Yes?”

“I’ve got that report you wanted. I hope you really need this information, because we lost two men down there when the natives got touchy.”

“I planned on that. Send it on to me.”

The less authoritative of the two took a file off his datapad and sent it to his superior.

Heirax, the superior, received the file and dismissed the underling.

He read it over, frowning. This was not what he had intended. He had wanted to go down there and establish a kind of rapport with some of the darker Averani groups, the Shadowside forests that were forced to live off starlight and the relatively weak light of Rigel. They were angry, he had thought.

Turned out he was wrong. Mostly. They weren’t any more irritable than the lightside forests, but they were far more adaptable and willing to change. When the forest didn’t have a ‘sun’ to raise its leaves to, its people turned their eyes to the stars and wondered if they could become closer to that light.

Unfortunately negotiations had not gone as planned. Yes, Heirax had counted on a man or two being wounded. Worst case. He hadn’t expected them to actually kill his people. Good thing he’d sent down some idiots with his diplomat. Hopefully they’d killed the idiots, not the diplomat.

The shadow forests had considered their offer. Shadowside wanted to establish small spaceports in some of the dark forests, both to have a foothold there and to be able to monitor their… projects elsewhere.

Shadowside’s boss, Morpho, was up in arms about that Ringrunner, the ship that was currently making a sweep of every single Ring and apparently picking up random strangers in the process, which was both bad and good. She didn’t want them interfering with Shadowside’s projects, and wasn’t quite sure what to do with them.

If Heirax were to be honest with himself, he’d say they should shoot the _Amelia_ down when they had a chance. But it wasn’t his place to decide, now, was it? Besides, Morpho wouldn’t want to risk hurting their own operatives in a firefight. There were a couple really valuable agents in danger should the _Amelia_ come under fire. She’d fight back before being inevitably destroyed.

Despite apparently needing to kill two of Heirax’s men, the shadow forests had agreed to set up several ports. Heirax scanned the report, trying to discern a reason for the murders-

_Aaahhhhh._

One of the men had been smoking.

That was really all it took when you were dealing with Averani nyphelim. It was incredibly easy to insult them. Fire of any kind was a threat to them- joined as they were with the plant-minds, it was considered their worst enemy. Spaceports were hard enough to design as it was with all the buildings being made of wood. Living wood. If your engines so much as scorched a twig, you'd be immediately thrown off-world.

But if one was stupid enough to have an open flame while roaming around down there, especially while in negotiations with a plant-mind representative... Heirax was honestly a little glad that he no longer had a man that idiotic to deal with under his command. Good riddance.

The dead man had lit his cigarette while waiting outside the negotiations room, with two other crew members. The diplomat was inside.

Someone had come up moments later and asked him to stop. Immediately. The plants had smelled the smoke and were frightened of the fire.

The smoking man had scoffed and told the nyphelim to leave them alone. The nyphelim had repeated their request. When the man threatened to burn the building if they didn't leave, the nyphelim had taken action, which in this case meant baring their claws and threatening to kill the man if he did not leave immediately. Frightened but arrogant, the man had taunted the nyphelim, and promptly died for it with a slash to the throat. Those claws weren't just for show.

Aghast and angered, the second man had attacked the nyphelim with his pistol. However, nyphelim were descended from fyaeiarnae as well as humans, and they were armored. The shots did no damage, but the nyphelim's claws destroyed the second man's armor and flesh.

The third crew member did nothing. He stepped back, staying out of the conflict. The nyphelim gave him a friendly nod and continued on its way, convinced now that the threat had been vanquished. The flame of the cigarette had been extinguished by the first man’s blood.

Interesting detail to include, Heirax mused.

The diplomat had not been pleased. She'd gotten the nyphelim to clean up the bodies, which were going to be shipped back to Kalyrio. From there, any family members of the two dead men could decide what to do with them.

The nyphelim had agreed to open up a few spaceports. It would take a few years, as they'd need to have their plant-minds grow in certain ways to create the ports, but the plant-minds were very determined and powerful, and could grow extremely quickly.

"Well, that much at least is good," Heirax muttered, scrolling through the report again. "Two dead men and three spaceports in this region. Looks like Aktuataxa refused to cooperate, but that was to be expected of them. Evergreens are never friendly..."

Heirax closed the file down and stored it carefully away. Ideally he would have been able to now spend his time checking up on their other projects, but he didn’t have the access for that. So he’d have to settle for overseeing the Averan operations.

“Now,” he murmured, using his datapad to send for an underling. “As for those Briars…”

‘Those Briars’ were a small group that had decided that they and they alone were capable of handling all of the criminal operations for Averan. Morpho did not appreciate this. The Briars were more of a gang than an organization, but somehow they’d been holding everything together so far. They were entirely native Averani, hence the plant-inspired name, and Heirax wasn’t sure what was keeping them in operation. From what he knew, the nyphelim could be set off by the slightest little thing. How they weren’t at each other’s throats he didn’t know.

The underling appeared. “Get me a link to our friend Curalil on the surface,” Heirax ordered, not bothering to look at the newcomer. They disappeared, anyway, so it didn’t matter.

“Hello,” said a voice from the intercom a minute later.

“Curalil! How are you?” Heirax’s voice was friendly, but his business was not. “How’s your interference going down there?”

“Oh, fine.” Curalil coughed once. “Er… excuse me for a moment.” His voice went muffled, talking to someone else.

“I’ll wait.”

“…all right. Sorry, sir, I was in a meeting and had to leave to have a sensitive conversation with my family.” He sighed. “This rabble will believe anything.”

“What’s holding them together? I thought you were going to dissolve them.”

“Yes- well-“ Curalil couldn’t seem to figure out what he was trying to say.

“Spit it out.”

Another sigh. “They’re really very nice,” he said. “And they don’t do anything. These ones, that is. Most of the Briars are completely harmless, and they argue a lot but not too much because they seem to think that arguing is going to anger the spirits and the spirits will cause lightning storms. Or… something like that. I’m not sure. Anyway, the ones who are causing trouble are mostly the ringleaders and their little task force.”

“Task force?” This was new. Heirax shifted position, leaning forward even though there was no one physically in front of him to talk to.

“Yes. They have a special tasks force, the members of which are all called Breakers. I think that references the way plant roots destroy stone to grow? It was explained to me, but that’s all I could really get out of what I was told. The Breakers are the nyphelim that carry out most of the actual work, including any subjugation of rival gangs.”

“Interesting.”

“Right.” A pause. “Oh, they’re- alright. They’re going to get suspicious if I stay out of this meeting for much longer, it’s important. We’re discussing your involvement with spaceports.”

“What, already?” Heirax smiled. “News travels fast.”

“When all the plant-minds can communicate with each other and with the nyphelim, yes, it does. I must admit that being connected to a plant-mind is… exhilarating.”

“Don’t get too used to it.”

“I won’t! It’s just really interesting. It’s odd to be raised away from them and then introduced to them. I have to be careful that I’m not snared by them, because the one I’m with wants me to stay here. It’s also really smart and keeps trying to pry into my head. Can’t let it. Then it’d know things that I don’t want the other nyphelim here to know and it would tell them. I really do have to go.”

“Not yet. How many ringleaders are there?”

“I’m not sure.”

“If you get a chance, convert one of them. Or more. It could be useful to have the Briars under Shadowside control rather than having to just destroy them. Another gang will pop up where they were, but if we own them…”

“I’ll keep it in mind,” Curalil promised. “Is there… anything else?”

“No. Go back to your meeting. Good luck down there,” Heirax drawled, and cut the communication short. Remain in an authoritative position by determining when they would speak, done.

Hopefully, Curalil would gather enough influence to convert the Briar ringleaders to Shadowside's control. Otherwise, the interaction between Shadowside and the Briars could escalate into firefights or even ship-to-ship battles. And given the fragility of the plant-minds in terms of fire, that would be good for just about no one.

Heirax's ship, the _Sirius_, had highly advanced shields and weaponry. No doubt they'd be able to shoot down a fair number of the nyphelim organic ships if it came to a battle.

But it could also result in massive wildfires. Morpho preferred to avoid causing Ringwide catastrophes. Heirax would have to watch his step.


	12. Interlude - Lore: Spaceships and the Amelia

The T.F.S. _Amelia_ is an augmented Ladybird VII model light transport tramp ship. This means that she goes where she pleases, keeping no regular schedule although she’s still part of the Traders’ Fleet.

Her captain, Commander Elmina Charis, is technically part of the Traders’ Fleet protective force or military, and the _Amelia_ accordingly has experimental shields that are said to be far more effective than ordinary kinetic barriers, though they require a specialized operator to handle if they are being actively altered. Unfortunately, due to the _Amelia_’s size and power, she is not very agile and she does not have guns, though her helmsman does an incredibly good job of piloting her to the best of her ability.

The Traders’ Fleet isn’t so much a strict organization as a blanket term for any ship under the TF protection because of their status as a cargo vessel. Almost any ship that carries goods of any kind is registered with the TF and has their protection, although in most it’s a formality, because a lot of liners and passenger ships don’t carry goods often enough actually make use of the protective title.

There are several kinds of ships besides light transport, and most are created to protect larger cargo or passenger ships. In order of largest to smallest, they are such:

  * Dreadnoughts (battleships; not used in trading)
  * Carriers (transport for smaller ships; used in peacetimes for trading)
  * Cruisers (passengers and transport; some fighting capability, but not much)
  * Frigates (e.g. the _Amelia_, made for transporting small cargo, with higher capability for fighting than any of the other larger types of starships aside from those specifically designed for it. Frigate is also a blanket term for any ship that will carry cargo, but in this context it refers to a specific size of ship.)
  * Shuttles (any ship designed to carry people between ships without docking, or carry personnel between ship and ground without needing to dock.)
  * Fighters (strictly used for fighting, their purpose is obvious. Often single-seater ships, or capable of holding two or three people maximum.)

These ships are often as not equipped with far more protection than could be expected of them; some shuttles in the Traders’ Fleet have advanced kinetic barriers of their own, and even mounted cannons. No one in their right mind would attack a dreadnought, and although pirates may target a cruiser or a frigate, any advanced weaponry would surely drive them off.

This doesn’t stop the occasional capture from occurring, of course. Then, if the captured ship is valuable enough to warrant a rescue, the Traders’ Fleet sends out its most capable frigates and fighters to recover the ship. This has not happened in an extremely long time, and will not likely happen, as the full might of the Traders’ Fleet is nigh on unstoppable given the Fleet’s blanket membership of almost every cargo ship in the galaxy, and it’s nearly impossible for simple pirates to capture even a cruiser.

Pirates are, almost universally, not organized enough to pose any serious threat to any Traders’ Fleet vessel worthy of rescue. However, a powerful criminal group such as Shadowside is more than capable of taking a ship large enough to attract authoritative attention.

The _Amelia_ is a Ladybird VII model. Most ships – human-built ones, at least – are named after the creature they most resemble, in terms of size or power. The _Amelia_’s rounded hull and dimpled surface – for greater atmospheric flight (A-flight) speeds with less resistance – remind the humans of the patterning on a ladybug.

Other models of ship include the following:

  * Dreadnoughts: Saurian models 1 & 2, Teratorn models 1 – 3, Blue models 1 – 4, Dragon models 1 – 3, Anaconda models 1 & 2.

Dreadnoughts are named after legendary creatures or figures of great power, such as Goliath, Behemoth, Leviathan, Shiva, Isis, Mawu, Coatlicue, and Ancalagon.

  * Carriers: Condor models 1 – 7, Monitor models 1 – 3, Humpback models 1 – 6, Komodo models 1 – 5, Lammergeier models 1 – 6, Crocodile models 1 – 4, Constrictor models 1 – 5

Carriers are named after various influential historical figures, most of them powerful monarchs or great leaders. Examples include Cleopatra, Elizabeth, Amina, Yaa Asantewa, Tesla, Jalal, Khaleda Zia, Victoria, Yousafzai, and Teresa.

  * Cruisers: Albatross models 1 – 9, Manta models 1 – 8, Heron models 1 – 5, Vulture models 1 – 7, Python models 1 – 5

Cruisers are named after almost anything. Examples of cruiser names include Solar Wind, Symphony, Fire, Nebula, Aurora, and Starwalker.

  * Frigates: Ladybird models 1 – 8, Tern models 1 – 13, Swan models 1 – 15, Hawksbill models 1 – 17, Caiman models 1 – 14, Cricket models 1 – 10, Katydid models 1 – 11

Frigates can be named after almost anything; there is no strict rule determining their names, as there are too many to make sure names in a certain category aren’t repeated. Examples of frigate names include Amelia, Dawn’s Triumph, Kettlegrim, Outrider, Ripple, Stormqueen, Nettle, and Sirius.

  * Shuttles: Shetland models 1 – 24, Tarantula models 1 – 18, Crustacean models 1 – 27

Shuttles are rather inglorious vessels but they are named all the same. There are almost no limits to what a shuttle can be named; you just can’t name it something that’s already taken. Examples include Olivia, Bertrand, Snow’s Delight, Hemisphere Sky, Cheerio, and Blast-Off.

  * Fighters: Peregrine models 1 – 19, Viper models 1 – 22, Hummingbird models 1 – 12, Scorpion models 1 – 17, Dragonfly models 1 – 24, Rattler models 1 – 23.

Fighter names are basically unregulated, and a fighter can have almost any name imaginable as long as it intruding into the territory of names that other classes of ships may use. Typically the names embody the ship’s purpose; they will often be names that sound joyful, or mean fierce joyful things. The meanings of the names of stars are often used as well. Examples of fighter names include Scorcher, Falcon, Skyjoy, Executor, Whiplash, Flare, Stardrift, Heatwave, and Firebolt.

Additionally, there are types of ships that technically qualify as ships in the same classes as human ships, but are extraordinarily different. For example, the nyphelim have created organic spaceships made from plants. The ships are alive and sentient, and communicate with their pilots and crews via bioelectric semitelepathic interfaces.

The nyphelim of Averan have managed to grow one dreadnought, which they proudly have named Sequoia, after the trees of Earth.

Apart from Sequoia, they have a carrier called Elder. They also possess two cruisers, called Sapling and Heartwood, and a small fleet of frigates. There are no grown plant fighters.

The nyphelim’s ability to create organic spaceships stems from their ancestors, the fyaeiarnae. The fyaeiarnae are an existing race, and they, too, fly organic spaceships. theirs, however, are faunal, not floral. Their ships are animals specially bred to be able to house a crew and travel through the vacuum without being harmed.

The fyaeiarnae have three living dreadnoughts, called _Aphela, Courunir, _and _Ventath_. They aren’t modeled after any existing creature; they are their own species, never created before and never to be created again.

_Aphela_ is the greatest of the three. She is a truly massive beastie, about a kilometer long, with a main gun spanning the entire length of her body and functioning, effectively, as her spine. She has eight tentacles, four on each side, and four eyes. Between her sets of eyes is the glass view panel where the helmsmen are stationed – _Aphela_ is large enough that she requires six. Her overall shape is long and mostly cylindrical, if you ignore the tentacles.

Despite her size and apparent slowness, _Aphela_ can in fact accelerate to faster-than-light speeds and travel just as quickly as any other ship. Her drive core is located on her belly; when she needs to travel, she can curl her tentacles underneath, forming an accelerator tunnel, and retract the hard shell protecting the core.

That hard shell is very important; it protects _Aphela_’s drive core from enemy fire or debris drifting through space. Without the drive core, she would be stuck within the system where she was created, and restricted to non-FTL travel speeds.

_Aphela_ cannot fight alone. As powerful as her main gun is, and as powerful as her smaller guns are, she cannot maneuver very well because of her size and the rigidity of her body – the main gun can’t be bent. Therefore, she never fights alone, hence her title as flagship of the fyaeiarnae fleet.

If _Aphela_ is needed, she will travel with two carriers and a small fleet of fighters. After all, if _Aphela_ is called, whatever’s happening clearly must need a lot of firepower. Her main gun is a full hundred meters longer than either of the other fyaeiarnae dreadnoughts’ guns.

The carriers are different beasts from her. They resemble giant, tough-skinned manta rays, their bellies swollen and sides oddly striated. They shelter the fighters that prevent enemy ships from flanking _Aphela_ and the other living dreadnoughts in battle. The drive core on carriers is located within the beast itself, in a lower chamber sealed away from the vacuum.

The fighters are equipped with powerful engines, and are extremely small and agile. Their design looks much like that of an old Earth fighter jet, with backswept triangular wings and a narrow pointed from. However, the body armor of the fighter is made of a kind of calcareous shell material, infused with steel and a couple layers of graphene structuring. The kinetic barriers on the fighters aren’t nearly as good as the barriers on ships like the dreadnought, but they’re fast enough that they aren’t often hit, making the light barriers adequate for the amount of damage they’re designed to be able to take.

Most of the spaceships are extremely intelligent, if not sentient – _Aphela_ and her siblings communicate regularly with their crews in order to help everything run smoother. The fighters are not technically sentient, but they certainly seem have minds of their own.

The khavvichthi have ships that are very similar to human ships in material, but different in design. The classes, regardless of what race created the ships, are almost always the same, though they may be assigned different names.

The vikyrelle are another spacefaring species, rather new to the galactic community – even newer than humans. They are avian in genetics, and look rather frightening, given that their appearance is rather similar to that of a long-necked weasel or dragon, feathered and with front arms tipped with fragile fingers. Most of the vikyrelle spacecraft are modeled after avian creatures or floating seeds, and the interiors are designed without hallways; the vikyrelle climb instead, and do not need flat roads or stairs.

No doubt the galaxy is rife with other spacefaring species waiting to be discovered, but they have yet to contact the main races, and thus are not listed here.


	13. The Amelia: Corrix Gravity Drop

“Alright, everyone, shut down any unnecessary comms, because we’re heading into Corrix airspace and we don’t want them to accidentally pick anything up. So, you know, tell your family you can call back later. We don’t want to alert the natives, hmm?”

Raleigh rearranged her HUD.

Her personal comm clicked on. “Tereiti, what did I just say?”

“Um. Comms off, sir?”

“And are your comms off?”

“…yes, sir?”

“Please don’t call me sir unless I make you do it. Are you sure?”

“Uh, yes.”

“…all right, then who near you…?”

Raleigh glanced around. And of course:

She leaned out of her chair and cleared her throat, then said: “Doctor Anulohr, are you _trying_ to get us in trouble with Corrix Watch?”

The fyaeiarnae, who was working at a borrowed secondary station, glanced over at her, frowning. “Pardon me?”

“The helmsman has requested you turn your comms off. It’s against Iridere law.”

Misalu looked back at his display. “I don’t have any- oh, wait. Sorry.” He did something rapidly, clawed hands moving fast enough to make Raleigh nervous. “I apologize. Is that better?”

“Problem solved, Vari, sir.”

“Let me guess. Our good friend Doctor Misalu?”

“Spot on, sir.”

“Please, stop with the sir. It makes me feel way too official and I don’t want to end up strutting around the ship with a stick up my ass.” Vari sighed. “Keep an eye on that guy, Raleigh. I don’t trust him.”

“Agreed, sir.” Raleigh accessed her extended controls, which she rarely did, and check over the other secondaries’ stations, trying to see if anyone else had comms on. She did shut down a little private channel between two flirting crewmembers, reminding them gently that this was against the law and that they could invite each other to dinner on shore leave later, and stopped using her overlord abilities.

Vari switched over to using the intercom rather than personal comms to every crewmate- the less comm chatter, the better for them. “Alright, everyone,” he said. “We’re coming in now… We should hit the first layer of the atmosphere in three… two… one…”

The ship shook gently as she tunneled into the top layers of the atmosphere and burned a little downwards to avoid skipping off and ending up back in space. Raleigh also felt the ship adjust to deal with Corrix’s gravity. It had been pulling on them for a bit now, but now it was really a factor.

Raleigh had forgotten to turn her eavesdropper off. “Alright,” she heard Vari mutter in her ear. “We shouldn’t hit the lower atmosphere… against Watch regulations… Hold it up here, old girl…”

She wondered whether or not to leave it on.

“Heya, Commander,” Vari said suddenly. “Come up to watch through the windscreen?”

“Yes,” Raleigh heard Charis say. “To get whatever view I can of this forbidden place.”

“Well, there it is.”

“Hmm.”

“So our exact tasks are…?”

“We’re dropping some supplies at Kharavani Port if the conditions are right.”

“Wait, seriously?” Vari sounded somewhat frightened. “We’re… are we supposed to be doing this?”

“Yes.”

“Um… Is this sanctified by the Corrix Watch? Because I had no idea we were actually going in. I assumed it was another overscan that our lovely scientist passengers would deal with.”

“Nope.”

“Ooo-kay, then,” Vari muttered. “That changes things… let me warn my secondaries, ‘kay?”

“Sure.”

Vari clicked on the personal comms. “Change in plans, secondaries. We’re going in.”

“O-oh,” Raleigh said, feigning surprise.

“Main point of attention here is that we gotta stay hidden. It’s really terrible that we don’t have advanced stealth systems, but we’re just going to have to compensate for that. We can’t turn invisible, but we _can_ make our shields as opaque and nebulous as possible, which should make us look like a cloud, at least from a distance. Raleigh, I’m leaving that to you. Pick yourself some underlings to help with that if you want.”

Raleigh paused, frowning. Did he just promote her?

“So we’ll be heading for a city near the support, meaning we’re going to catch the atmospheric layer around that support and ride that in. From there we’re going to head down and fly low over the ocean behind a storm- we’re going to have to fly through it, sorry- and right up under the cliffs of Kharavani. From what I can tell they’ve got some caves for ships to shelter in, since they’re a space-friendly city and have supply ships come in sometimes and they have to hide them from the developing population over near the plains.”

Right, right. The experimental humans. Of course. Raleigh accessed the overall shield control and started turning it opaque.

“Oh, and one more thing. Once we start coming back down, we can’t use our engines. They make too much noise on entry, and we can’t risk anyone who doesn’t understand space hearing that. So we’re banking around now and pulling away from the atmosphere. Hold on, everyone…”

The ship wheeled around. Vari turned the personal comms off, but not the eavesdropper.

“Hold on, what’s down there?”

“What do you mean?”

“Right- over there.”

“That’s… that’s a lot of armor,” Vari murmured. “Looks like a lot of dead things, Commander. Someone had quite the fight… oh, months ago, looks like. Half of that’s rusted.”

“Must’ve been some battle.”

“It probably was. Hey, secondaries, pulling up now.”

The _Amelia_ pulled up away from Corrix’s surface. Raleigh accessed the front cameras and had to stop herself from crying out- before them, a massive cylindrical support was growing rapidly larger. Vari pulled the ship parallel with it, turning her nose towards the Core, then spiraled around the support a few times until somehow he was turning the ship back the way she’d come.

She hung for a split second, motionless, caught in the top arc of the spirals, engines off, completely weightless for a second. Then gravity caught her again and she shot back down towards Corrix’s surface, frighteningly close to the support’s surface, latching onto the miniscule gravitational pull it had to help control her fall.

“And here we go again. Hitting the atmosphere in three… two… one…”

The _Amelia_ shuddered again, this time far more violently, and Raleigh checked the kinetics again, making sure the _Amelia_ wasn’t accidentally getting burnt anywhere.

“Hold onto your seats, everyone.”

Over the eavesdropper, Raleigh heard Vari sigh. “You still here, Commander?”

“Mm-hm.”

“Great. Stayed to watch a master at work, huh?” Raleigh glanced at the camera views. Clouds whipped past them. Vari tapped the jets a few times, getting them a little further from the support. “This probably would be impossible for any normal pilot. Fortunately, you’ve got me, not someone else.”

“And I thank my lucky stars every day.”

“Hey, I don’t have to take that from you. I mean, I do, but I don’t.”

“No, of course not. I’m only your commanding officer.”

“What is this, the military? Please.”

“Security’s close enough.”

“Tell that to the military, and make sure you do it while I’m far, far away.”

“Oh, we both know how they’ll react.”

“Mhm. Hence why I want to be far away.”

Charis laughed. “The ground’s getting pretty close, Vari.”

“Oh, right. The approach.”

The _Amelia_ dropped nose-first towards the ground, completely in free fall. Raleigh caught an altitude warning on her scanners and flagged it for Vari.

“I know, Raleigh. But thanks anyway.”

The ground continued to grow closer.

“And… ready, set, go,” Vari muttered. He redirected the engine thrust path, and burned fuel for a good ten seconds. The _Amelia_ rocketed away from the support, breaking free of its gravity and shooting forwards over the green and yellow ground below, punching through thick storm clouds.

Vari extended the _Amelia_'s wings. Raleigh felt the change in their speed as the wings provided extra resistance against the sky. The subjets flared just a bit and she tipped her nose upwards, going from a straight drop to a steep glide to nearly-level flight.

Abruptly they passed the cliffs and were suddenly over choppy water. Raleigh swallowed nervously as they came close to the water, stopped about forty feet up, and rose a little bit.

Vari cut the engines. The _Amelia _coasted, still rising, then began a slow glide downwards. Raleigh was extremely nervous. The subjets were still working, but those were barely powerful enough to keep the ship hovering...

They carved a path just above the water, throwing up spray. Raleigh altered the ship's shields and turned them opaque everywhere except the nose, so that Vari could still see what he was doing.

"Perfect, thanks," Vari told her.

Beneath them the ocean was pushed up and away, half vaporizing, creating a thick fog very suddenly along with one hell of a wake.

"And around we go," Vari murmured. "Where's Kharavani...? There. Okay. Turn, beautiful... there we go."

They rounded a cliff point and curved gracefully around towards the cliffs themselves. A cave gaped in the side- Vari guided the _Amelia _in and braked hard, keeping careful control to prevent her from fishtailing into the wall. The water lapped underneath them, but when he nudged the _Amelia _further into the cave, the floor went above the water level. A little further and they passed through some kind of shield, and abruptly there was a proper dock.

"Nice," Vari muttered. He tried to raise Kharavani. "_Amelia _to Kharavani Port Control, come in. Anyone there?"

"Nice approach," came a voice over the comms.

"Thanks. Clear to dock?"

"Yep." The voice sounded very tired. "You can- hold on. What?" The 'what' was fainter, as if the speaker had turned away to listen to someone else. Raleigh could hear an odd staticky sound in the background, like a TV with bad reception. "Alright. Yes, you're clear to dock. Kthfthkthir, if you would..."

More static noises. Vari nudged the _Amelia _forward again and docking clamps came down from above, and a support from below.

Raleigh accessed the front and side cameras, curious about the port. She saw through a sort of small station window a person standing next to a control bank, and working the control bank…

Dear lord, Raleigh thought in shock, what _is_ that? Immediately she felt awful; she knew what it was, it was a khavvichthi, but her initial reaction was one of mild repulsion.

The creature working the controls- evidently the ‘Kthfthkthir’ that the operator had mentioned- was using all of its arms to do so. It had four of them, all segmented and shiny, and it was very quick. The other four limbs were legs, hidden behind the control board. Raleigh swallowed. She decided she would do all she could to meet this Kthfthkthir. If she was frightened at all, it was because she didn’t know what it was, and clearly the remedy for that was to become the khavvichthi’s friend.

“And we’re good,” Vari called over the comms. “Thanks, secondaries. You did great job of not panicking.”

“Thanks,” Raleigh heard someone to her right say quietly. She glanced over and saw one of the secondaries smiling down at her feet. Vari was the best helmsman they could ask for, she realized again.

The commander came stalking back through the ship, evidently heading for the crew deck to pick up a shore party. “Navigator, ready up,” she said, as she passed Raleigh. “Get your armor on. You’re going out with me.”

Why her, all the time?! Raleigh nodded and closed down her workstation. “Yes, ma’am.”

“Oh, please, not that again,” Charis groaned, rubbing her head. “Really now.”

“Um.”

“Just go and be back here in ten minutes. We’re heading out then.”

Raleigh scampered. The door to the bridge area slid shut behind her as she headed for the crew quarters.

She had armor, but she wasn’t sure why Charis thought she would need it… it wasn’t that dangerous on Corrix’s surface, right?

Right?

Raleigh’s armor wasn’t really armor, but it was an outfit that was outfitted with a kinetic shield generator. She squirmed a little bit in it.

Charis met her at the airlock access. To her surprise, Misalu was also there.

“I can’t get rid of him,” Charis whispered to Raleigh over the comms. “I honestly regret picking this man up.”

“I can see why.”

Misalu did not appear to notice their covert conversation. He had on _another_ set of his scientist robes on- where did these keep coming from?- with an unfamiliar emblem embroidered on the chestpiece. Charis looked him over once and shook her head.

The three of them waited in the _Amelia's _personnel airlock while the pressure equalized, then walked out as the hull door slid open. The air outside was humid and warm, smelling intensely of salt water and wet stone.

There was a half-meter gap to jump between the ship and the walkway. Charis hopped over; Raleigh and Misalu followed suit.

"Welcome to Corrix," someone called, and Raleigh glanced up to see the person who had been standing in the control booth. It was a very average-looking human, perfectly fitting the description of 'generic white man.'

"Thank you," the commander called back. She nodded formally to the man. "I'm Commander Elmina Charis. You are?"

"Station Control Master Benedict Gelowsky," the man replied. "And this is- where...?" He turned around, peering back towards the control booth. "Kthfthkthir...?"

The khavvichthi skittered out of the booth, and Raleigh got a good look at it. It moved easily on four segmented legs, each one ending in a clawed foot, and it came up nearly to Raleigh's chest at its tallest. The body was portly, almost round, and the torso poked awkwardly out of the front. Each of the creature's arms ended in two small clawed fingers, similar to the claws on the khavvichthi's feet. The neck arched over the front, and its face was dominated by two massive mandibles underneath eight eyes, four of which were large and black, four of which weren't much more than tiny light sensors clustered together on the top of its head.

Below the neck, just above what seemed to function like shoulders, were two extra legs. Raleigh realized that they were pedipalps- khavvichthi were arachnoid creatures, and they had anatomy similar to that of spiders. The similarity was fortified by the fact that this particular khavvichthi was jet black and covered in fine black hair.

"This is Kthfthkthir," Gelowsky said proudly. "Probably the most knowledgeable creature I know when it comes to spaceships."

"Try and tell Vari that," Raleigh muttered under her breath.

Kthfthkthir glanced up at Gelowsky, then opened a sleek datapad strapped to one of its arms and tapped something rapidly with two hands. The datapad flashed gently and a soft voice said:

"I appreciate the compliment, but I doubt that it is true."

Raleigh raised an eyebrow.

Kthfthkthir emitted a series of clicking and chirruping sounds, then shook its head, obviously annoyed. "Left-bracket sigh right-bracket," the datapad said, and the Khavvichthi hung its head in annoyance. 

Charis suppressed a smile. "Having some trouble there?"

"It does not normally misbehave in this manner!" Kthfthkthir 'said,' alarmed.

"Might want to get that fixed at some point."

"I will do my best." Kthfthkthir looked absolutely mortified, drawing its arms into itself and pulling its head back.

Charis stared at the Khavvichthi for a moment, amused.

Gelowsky chuckled. "I heard you have some supplies for us, Commander?"

"That's right." Charis inclined her head before clicking her comm on. "Vari, get some of the crew to unloading our Corrix supplies."

The dock suddenly exploded into action, the _Amelia_'s bay door opening and people unloading crates and boxes out into the humid air. Charis strode off to oversee something and Misalu took Gelowsky aside to ask some questions and Raleigh found herself standing uselessly in the middle of the crowds with Kthfthkthir.

The khavvichthi looked inquiringly up at her. "We should move out of the way," the datapad chimed.

"Probably a good idea." Raleigh hurried to the side, clearing the path for a large crate on a trolly to get by. "Um... I don't know if I'm supposed to be doing anything right now."

"I too am baffled by my own presence here. Although I thought I had good reason for it."

"Oh?"

"Well." Kthfthkthir fiddled with the datapad, seeming almost nervous. "I have lived on Corrix my whole life. Lately I have desired to leave the Ring- there is nothing I can do here. So I was going to query your captain to ask if she would allow me to leave on your ship." It stopped, wringing two of its hands for a second before resuming typing. "But your captain is... formidable."

"That's for sure," Raleigh agreed instantly. "She can be really scary sometimes."

"She carries guns."

"Yeah." Raleigh chewed on her lip. "I don't use guns, but Commander Charis... she's really skilled. She's a really good shot."

"The guns are frightening."

"She doesn't plan to use them on you!" Raleigh smiled at the khavvichthi. "We're just visiting here. She's not thinking about fighting."

"Why would she wear armor if she were not expecting to fight?"

This gave Raleigh pause. She glanced down at her own outfit, touched the battery that rested just over her sternum. "I... you don't miss much, do you?"

Kthfthkthir didn't answer that.

"I don't know why she's got armor. I don't know why she asked me to wear armor."

"Perhaps simply as a safety precaution."

"Probably." Raleigh glanced up and saw the commander again, standing in the middle of the activity and not doing anything in particular. "I don't- oh, hey, there she is now. I'll go ask her if you can come aboard."

"You would do that for me?!" Kthfthkthir looked astonished, and even the voice from the datapad picked up the emotion- evidently it could read ahead on the punctuation and add inflection to its words.

"Of course. You seem really bright and I doubt you plan on sabotaging the ship, so I don't see why not." Raleigh shrugged. "Besides, it never hurts to have a few extra hands on board."

"I would be indebted to you." Kthfthkthir bowed its head again, but this time also bowed with its front legs, executing a strangely graceful movement.

"It's not a problem, really, it's not," Raleigh told it hurriedly. "I'll go do that now, if that's alright."

"Of course!" Kthfthkthir paused, then tapped out, "Rather. Yes, please do."

Raleigh grinned at it, then stood and pushed her way past various crewmembers until she reached the commander. "Commander Charis!"

"Please," Charis sighed. "Just Charis. Or even Elmina. Stop being so formal."

This stopped Raleigh, as it was unrelated to her current thoughts. "Erm- ah- okay, but, I have a question."

"What is it?"

"The khavvichthi," Raleigh began. "It wants to come aboard."

"And look at the ship?"

"Nnnno... It wants us to take it off-world. It's been trying to leave Corrix for a while. It wanted to ask you but you're a little scary and it was frightened."

Charis, who had been frowning, adopted and expression of amusement mixed with pity. "Oh," she said, and sighed. "All right. Sure, we can take it. It's knowledgeable with ships, I heard."

"Yeah."

"Well, let it know that it's good to come along with us if it wants."

"Will do. Thank you, Commander!" Raleigh spun and made her way back over to Kthfthkthir.

The khavvichthi was waiting eagerly, shifting on its clawed feet. "What is the answer?" It asked politely, when Raleigh reached it.

"You're good to come with us when we leave," Raleigh told it proudly. "Charis said so."

"This is wonderful news!" Kthfthkthir's claws flew almost too fast to see. "Oh, I am excited!"

"Remember we're not leaving for another day or two," Raleigh reminded the eager arachnid.

"This will give me ample time to gather my possessions. I do not have many! I will not be a burden to your crew."

"I believe you, don't worry." Raleigh grinned. "I think we'll like having you on board."

The _Amelia _stayed in Kharavani Port for three days. Charis continued to be adamant about wearing armor outside the ship. Raleigh continued to be confused about why. 

The answer became apparent when they tried to leave later that week.

The commander had all the crewmembers go to the ship and brought Raleigh and Doctor Vivaki with her to tell Gelowsky they were leaving. Raleigh was worried, because she didn't see Kthfthkthir anywhere, and they were supposed to take it with them off-Ring.

"Stationmaster Gelowsky," Charis called, leaning into the control booth. Gelowsky was sitting in front of the control bank reading, and looked up, surprised.

"Yes, Commander?"

"We're going to board the _Amelia _and request that you lift the docking clamps," she said. "We're leaving."

Gelowsky paused, mouth slightly open as if he were going to say something. "Well," he said, after a moment, "you see."

This was not going to end well.

"Your entry was... far more noticeable than we would have liked. It was a mess, to be specific. It was loud and it was noticed by the experimental humans."

"What? That's ridiculous." Charis snorted in derision. "We came in as quietly as we could."

"It wasn't quiet enough."

Charis sighed. "So what does that have to do with us leaving?"

"You're not leaving," Gelowsky said, closing his book and setting it on top of the controls. "We're impounding your ship."

The commander immediately contacted Vari. "Vari, can I get confirmation? Stationmaster Gelowsky says he's impounding the ship."

"Bullshit," Vari said instantly. The comms were open to all of the shore party members. "He doesn't have the authority to do that."

"What about Corrix Watch?"

"They do have the authority, but..."

"But what?"

"I haven't gotten any orders from them. Why is the _Amelia _being hypothetically impounded?"

"Entry was apparently noticed by the natives."

"What?!" Vari nearly exploded. "No way. That's a lie."

Charis glanced over at Gelowsky.

He sat still for a moment, and then his eyes flicked to the right.

Raleigh spun. Three armed men were hurrying out onto the dock.

"We don't want you to continue on your little journey," Gelowsky hissed. "You're not allowed to continue. You'll muck up our plans, and we have bigger things in store that we can't let you interfere with."

Dr. Vivaki swirled in front of the commander as the men fired. Bullets bounced off her armor as she clicked it into place, protecting her entire body. Charis whipped out her pistol and turned, her braid flying behind her. Raleigh realized that all of them, including her, were going to have to fight.

"Get out of the booth!" Charis yelled. The shore party backtracked, heading out into the larger open dock area. Raleigh turned on the battery and activated her kinetic shields.

Then she activated the secondary battery, the one that powered her offensive gear. The gear around her hands and arms flickered to life with electricity, and expanded into a proper weapon.

In one hand, a knife. In the other, a small device that would launch darts at high speeds, coated with poison or with microbatteries and taser tips. She whipped around, shields glittering slightly.

Gelowsky followed them out of the booth and attacked, going straight for Raleigh while Charis turned her attention towards the attacking gunmen. Raleigh whipped her fighting dirk up and slashed at Gelowsky's face.

He ducked back, then struck forward with a knife of his own that he had produced from his belt. Raleigh briefly wondered why he didn’t have a gun. Not that she wasn’t grateful that he didn’t have a gun. If she were fighting a tiny dart launcher and a dagger to a gun…

Vari’s voice echoed in their helmet. “We need to pull the ship free of the docking clamps! If I try to wrench her out of there, she’s going to take damage. One of you needs to get in there and disable the controls!”

“Not now, Vari!” Charis shouted, taking cover behind a crate.

“Raleigh?”

“I’m a little- hnn!- busy here!” Raleigh jumped backwards, avoiding another swipe of Gelowsky’s knife.

“Doctor Vivaki?”

“I am a biologist,” she snapped, whipping a hand up to fend off another bullet. It ricocheted off into the cave somewhere.

“If those bullets hit the ship, we’re going to have some problems. Her shields are down while she’s docked. Someone get those clamps off!”

“We’re trying to clear the dock!” Charis yelled.

“You don’t need to shout!” Vari was not heeding his own advice.

“You don’t need to shout either!”

A bullet whizzed past Raleigh’s ear. She backed up and fiddled with her dart gun, then fired a shot off at Gelowsky, one filled with toxic mamba venom. It hit Gelowsky somewhere, but he didn’t seem deterred at the moment.

“Okay,” she whispered to herself, breathing hard. “I guess that didn’t work.”

One of the faceless gunmen spun around, choking, and fell out of sight. Charis reloaded her pistol, face half-twisted in a smile. Scary and skilled. Terrifying and beautiful.

Suddenly, the docking clamps activated. They released the _Amelia_ from her position, and the support retreated from beneath. Her kinetic barrier powered up immediately and shields sprang to life around the ship, and her subjets automatically fired, keeping her from falling.

“Thought you said you were too busy to mess with the clamps? Thought you couldn’t save our ship right now?” Vari sounded annoyed.

“I didn’t!” Charis and Raleigh told him, in unison.

“I also did not,” Doctor Vivaki added.

“Then who-?”

Raleigh chanced a look over at the control booth. To her astonishment, there were no _Amelia_ crewmembers or station workers in the booth. Instead she saw-

“Kthfthkthir did it,” she said, half-astonished. “Kthfthkthir released the ship!”

“Clear the dock and get into the ship as soon as you can!” A bullet ripped through Charis’s kinetics and smacked into her armor, sending her staggering backwards.

Gelowsky’s attacks slowed dramatically. He turned and staggered towards the booth, trying to breath and not succeeding. It seemed Raleigh’s toxin had finally worked.

Kthfthkthir glanced up, black eyes glittering in the light. It froze for a second, then looked back down, quick clawed hands moving even faster now. Gelowsky narrowed his eyes at the khavvichthi.

“Don’t you dare hurt it,” Raleigh growled, lunging forwards. The glass screen of the booth had been shattered, and Gelowsky lunged through and scrabbled around on the desk. Too late Raleigh realized that he was grabbing for a gun, and she backpedaled wildly and stumbled backwards into a crate. Knowing she needed cover, she continued to propel herself backwards, and flipped ungracefully over the box and onto the ground.

The crate shuddered under the impact of several bullets. Raleigh let out a breath at the near escape, then realized with a jolt that Gelowsky might target Kthfthkthir if he didn’t what it was doing. Which he probably wouldn’t. And Kthfthkthir didn’t have shields or armor besides its carapace…

“Help Kthfthkthir!” Raleigh yelled, as best she could yell that particular collection of syllables.

“Gunman down,” Doctor Vivaki reported. “Good shot, Commander Charis.”

“Thanks.”

“Kthfthkthir!”

No response from the khavvichthi, which was to be expected. It probably didn’t have the time to type anything out right now.

However, she did hear the rapport of the gun firing again a few times and a high screaming noise, more whistle-like than anything. Her heart jumped, and- deciding she didn’t have the time to waste- she left her cover and ran for the control booth.

Gelowsky was leaning heavily on the wall. Without a second thought she swiped at him with her fighting dirk, yelling- it slashed across his neck, encountering slight resistance from a light shield, but punching through it. The dirk slashed through his dock outfit, hitting his shoulder and arm beneath, and then she ripped the dirk away and stabbed again, this time aiming for his neck and actually getting it, since he wasn’t really moving.

Then she turned, awkwardly flipping her dirk until it was parallel to her arm and retracting it, and ran for Kthfthkthir. It was no longer standing at the control bank, but it seemed mostly alright when Raleigh reached it.

“Are you alright?” she cried, kneeling behind the control bank.

Kthfthkthir, to its credit, knew enough about human body language to shake its head fervently. Two of its legs seemed somewhat shattered, the somewhat fuzzy carapace smashed by the impact of a bullet. One of them was fairly intact, but the other one seemed mostly destroyed in a mess of black carapace shards and whatever the hell was inside the carapace of a khavvichthi.

“Can you walk?”

Kthfthkthir shook its head. It only had two working legs.

Raleigh bit her lip. “Commander…?”

“If we knew how the cameras looked- as soon as this man’s down, we can take Kthfthkthir back in safety. Keep it safe for now!”

“On it.” Raleigh clicked the comms off. “Kthfthkthir, I’m to keep you safe until we can get you aboard the ship. Just stay calm, alright?”

Kthfthkthir nodded, lowering its head in pain. Raleigh glanced over at its legs again- one front leg, one back leg, both broken. Additionally, its abdomen was dented in one spot. Raleigh poked her head over the control bank, then yanked it down again when she realized the third gunman was very close by and apparently oblivious to her presence. She chose another quick-activating poison dart and readied it, then poked her head up, aimed, and fired. The dart went through the man’s kinetics and struck one of the weaker areas of the armor suit, where the fabric was thin to allow for movement. Hopefully it would stick into his skin enough to affect him. Her aim wasn’t going to get any better than that.

Raleigh ducked again. Kthfthkthir was watching expressionlessly, utterly still. Gelowsky had slid out of sight- hopefully he was dead.

A few more gunshots, and then the man stood and took aim- but didn’t fire. Instead he stumbled woozily, and two shots from the commander ripped through his shields and his body.

“Clear!” Charis yelled.

Kthfthkthir shook its head again and reached for the control bank. Raleigh did her best to help it stand, letting it lean heavily on her as it did something. Suddenly, camera views popped up. It showed more men with weapons, trying to apparently weld their way through a door-

“Oh,” Raleigh realized. “Reinforcements… Commander! We need to hurry!”

Charis hurried in. Doctor Vivaki followed, seeming completely unharmed, and she saw Kthfthkthir and immediately clicked her tongue in distress. “That won’t do,” she muttered.

“Lend a hand,” Charis ordered. She scooped up one half of Kthfthkthir’s body; Raleigh lifted the other half, grunting with the effort. Kthfthkthir, startled, scrabbled at the air with its legs and immediately made a series of high wheezing sounds in response to the sudden pain. There was nothing any of them could do about that.

“Onto the ship! Hurry, hurry,” Vari said nervously. Raleigh could hear him tapping his fingers on something in the cockpit.

“We’re trying. Open the airlock!”

“Done.”

Charis and Raleigh carried Kthfthkthir in. Doctor Vivaki brought up the rear, holding a ridiculously small but lethal-looking pistol in one clawed hand threateningly, keen eyes searching the dock access doors. The airlock slammed shut behind them, pressurized to the cabin, decontaminated, and allowed them into the ship in what seemed like record time.

The _Amelia_’s engines fired up. She seemed quieter than normal. Charis and Raleigh carried Kthfthkthir through the ship, ignoring curious looks from the crewmates, and brought it to the med bay.

Doctor Vivaki followed them closely in, and ordered that Kthfthkthir be settled not on a bed of some kind, but in the tub of soft, dense gel that could be altered so that any creature would have almost perfectly neutral buoyancy in it. Nudge the reading a little positive, and they’d float contentedly in the mixture for days.

“Now leave,” Vivaki snapped, fussing over the poor wounded khavvichthi, who was nearly unconscious at this point. “Out. I will do my best to aid this small being. Go, and send Misalu to me. Otherwise do not disturb me and allow no one in unless they require medical attention.”

The _Amelia_ moved smoothly through the visual barrier, then out of the cave, gliding slowly over the lapping waters and hugging the cliff as she left Kharavani Port and the experimental human settlements behind.

Just as she cleared the barrier, Raleigh saw one of the doors explode open on the cameras, and saw men pour through- but it was far too late to stop the ship. She gathered speed and headed for the support, keeping as quiet as possible, and finally caught the support’s gravity and headed upwards.

Her engines purred rather than roared; she tipped her nose upwards, pointing herself towards the sky, and burned fuel until the atmosphere faded to black and Corrix receded to a glowing blue and green Ring stretching through space as far as the eye could see.


	14. Conquering King: Expansion

“My love,” Aesila said reverently, bowing.

“Please don’t,” Micah sighed, uncomfortable with nearly everything right now.

Thank God for the Ringleaders, he thought to himself. Without them, his rule would be completely unstable. Not that it wasn’t shaky already.

In the past four months, Micah had claimed the kingship, established a new royal family, and checked the loyalty of all the old allies. Those that did not agree with him were swiftly destroyed. Once Micah had complete and total rule of Edrelle, he had total support of all its people and military force.

There were still a few pockets of resistance everywhere; supporters of the old regime who wanted nothing more than to return the old family to the throne and wipe out Micah and his line.

And he had a line. The old family was still very much alive and well. Micah was not fond of killing those who did not deserve it; he had let the family live, or what was left of it. Partially because of that moral, and partially because the only member of the family left was Aesila, the previous king’s only daughter, and now Micah’s wife.

She was extremely intelligent, and she had no brothers to come before her in line for the throne. Originally there were three, but all were killed in the revolution.

She didn’t seem to mind overmuch. She hadn’t liked them, or so she’d told Micah, and she hadn’t liked the old regime and its values either.

Aesila had willingly wedded herself to Micah, just days after his ascension. She was interested in the Cyraxis line, so she called it, and Micah was still worried she would slit his throat in his sleep. But she assured him this was not her intention, and her actions supported this.

“If you so say.” Aesila shrugged. “Julis wishes to speak with you.”

“He should know by this time that he doesn’t require permission. And neither do you. Nor do either of you require obsequience…”

“We know. But it is… habit, perhaps. Father was adamant about our servitude towards him.” Aesila smoothed her dress out and moved around the table, so she could see the map Micah was looking at. “He’ll be along in a bit.”

Micah only nodded and stared at the map.

Julis, who had been the phorusrhacid rider that had saved Micah’s life before the Kingsmatch, turned out to be as keen of mind as his blade was of edge. He was now serving as one of Micah’s advisors, as were all the Ringleaders.

However, Julis had some ideas that the others wouldn’t dare to think. Micah liked that- he approved of the man completely ignoring the traditional fear of the haunted cities, and wished to work with those ideas more.

Julis had suggested that perhaps Micah could solidify his claim over the eastern parts of Edrelle by occupying some of the haunted cities there- long-dead civilizations that had been cast down far in the past, ruined and destroyed but still left standing somehow, rife with ancient artifacts and lost technology. When Micah questioned Julis on his knowledge of the cities, Julis explained that he had grown up in the High Reaches- the mesas near a few of the cities- and that his sister had been wedded to a merchant who lived dangerously close to Seacliff, the haunted port city on the cliffs.

Just recently, perhaps a week ago, a strange fog had risen from Seacliff and washed over the bay, shrouding everything and putting a halt to all sea trade. It had happened before – there were records of such occurrences in the past, histories of similar fogs springing up at random times. They didn’t seem to match up with the seasons, or the tides, or the dimming or shining of the sun. There hadn’t been one for at least the better part of a year, however. Micah surmised that some powerful being- a demon, perhaps?- was raising the mist for its own malevolent purposes, but Julis disagreed, and said that no such creatures as demons existed. Julis had a strange outlook on some things, Micah mused to himself.

But Aesila agreed with Julis. This, Micah found curious. Aesila was brilliant, her mind faster than a viper and just as dangerous. If she agreed that there was some other cause for the mist, then Micah was inclined to believe her.

The Ringleaders warned against exploring the Cities. Micah decided that their old ideas were stagnant and was now deciding where to go.

Julis entered the room. “Hello, my liege,” he said, bowing before coming closer. He glanced down at the map, dark eyes roving over the parchment. “I see you have been considering the Cities… have you decided where we will go?”

“Yes.” Micah tapped his finger on the map.

The Ringleaders were definitely wrong. Partially to help them understand that they no longer dictated any portion of his actions, he set out to explore one of the Haunted Cities with Julis and Aesila and a party of guards.

Julis rode his terror bird, who Micah had learned was named Iishni. She was very patient and extremely intelligent, and could obey commands that Micah didn’t even realize you could teach a terror bird.

Micah, as always, rode Mjoll. She was mostly unarmored, clad in only a light mail that protected her most vital organs. They weren’t expecting any kind of trouble other than the various predatory species that might consider a slow-moving party of humans and their mounts easy prey.

The journey wasn’t a short one. They weren’t headed for Seacliff- Micah had adamantly refused Julis’ request that they journey there. He was unnerved by the fog that had sprouted from the sea and wanted, at least for now, absolutely nothing to do with it.

So their destination was much further away, although still within a few days’ ride from Kathaka, the capital city of Edrelle and the seat of Micah’s power. They were headed for Blackstone.

Blackstone was situated in the foothills of the southern Nyphel Mountains, practically carved out of the strange black rock that formed the mountains and lay under the plains around it. It was a little close to Seacliff for comfort, but Julis assured Micah that they could circumvent the castle and inlet and stay away from the oceanside city.

They crossed the small expanse of Aurum Fields between them and the mountains, then proceeded southwards following the coast and headed for Seacliff. However, when the distance between the ocean and the mountains widened again, they hung close to the mountains to avoid encountering whatever mystifying spirits inhabited Seacliff.

As they neared Blackstone, Micah would occasionally glance up at the rather intimidating castle uphill from them, shrouded in mist and silhouetted against the bright but clouded sky, a black outline against the white. It- and perhaps the mist that overlayed these lands- made him shiver and put his head down.

“Pay it no mind, my love,” Aesila murmured to him. “Seacliff cannot reach out to harm us from here.”

“I wish only that this is true.”

“It is.” Aesila was riding a creature of her own, one of the faster megatherium outfitted with a riding carriage. She had wanted to ride a phorusrhacid of her own, or a lioness, but despite her experience with riding Micah denied her request as she was pregnant and he did not want her to risk her harming herself in an attempt to control a strong-willed riding beast. Not that he doubted her abilities at all- she could control Mjoll, after all- but accidents could always happen.

Blackstone grew larger before them. It emerged from the mist like a mammoth, towering castles trailing shredded banners of mist and- in some cases- actual tattered cloth banners, torn to pieces by the wind and bleached white by the sun.

“There it is,” Julis murmured, as awestruck as the rest of them by the sight. “I… have not been close in some time.”

“When were you close to Blackstone before?”

“My family has a reputation for being willing to push the boundaries of what is acceptable,” Julis said, with a sigh. “We explore places that others deem impossible to explore.”

“…meaning what?”

“I have not been within Blackstone itself, but I have been close. The other haunted cities are more… familiar to me.”

“And you did not mention this sooner because…?” Micah actually reined Mjoll in and turned to face Julis, startled.

“I did not think it important. And it is not! It only gives me knowledge of how to lead you to the cities, and a little of what is in them: Nothing, or nearly nothing anyway.”

“Is there a problem?” Aesila asked silkily from the carriage, raising her veil a bit to look at both of the men.

Unsatisfied with Julis’ answer, Micah touched Mjoll’s reins to guide her forward again. “No,” he growled. “There is no issue. Continue.”

The walls of the haunted city of Blackstone were pitted with age, cracks running through and chunks missing from the massive barriers. Near the base of the walls the missing stones lay in tumbled heaps amongst the grass.

“This place is ancient,” Julis murmured, staring up at the weathered spires. Black windows gaped silently in the dark stone.

“Time cannot say how long these walls have stood here. Time cannot say where those who lived here went long ago,” Micah murmured.

Aesila glanced over at him, eyebrows raised. “Something of a poet, are we?”

“Only with a sword; words are not my friends.”

“They seem to be.”

“Stop that,” Julis muttered, shaking his head. “You- both of you- are _intolerable_.”

Neither the king nor the queen responded to this.

The gates to Blackstone were not intact. The only thing left of them- and it could only be assumed that they were made of wood at one point- were crumbling pieces of metal rusting on the stone door frame that indicated where the massive hinges once were. The doors were easily large enough to allow five mammoths to walk side-by-side through them. Micah wondered what Blackstone had been like long ago.

Mist drifted through the streets. Micah’s guards, all riding lightly armored bears, surrounded him, Aesila, and Julis.

Mjoll’s ears were pricked, and her eyes flickered around the streets. The main road the party entered on was paved in the same black stone that the buildings were made of, and was cracked and half-covered with dirt. Grass and weeds struggled out from between the cobbles, though the perpetual mist that covered Blackstone seemed to damage their growth somewhat.

In places the cobbles were gone altogether. The crumbling buildings were partially overtaken by trees, some of which had grown to the size of the buildings themselves.

One of the buildings’ doors was knocked down. Julis halted Iishni; Micah held up his hand, frowning. Julis dismounted and left Iishni standing where she was while he entered the building.

Not wanting to be left out of whatever was happening, Micah slid off Mjoll’s back and followed, leaving her outside freely.

Shadows lay over everything inside, still and silent. The walls appeared to be made of some kind of metal, bent and broken and covered in black dust. The ceiling had been plaster before it had fallen down. Julis stepped delicately over the wreckage of the ceiling and broken-down parts of walls and poked around in what appeared to be ruined cabinets or storage areas. After a moment, he leaned down and plucked something out of the chunks of plaster and stone.

Micah watched as he held it up and brushed it off. It was a gray box with black patches; Micah had no idea what it was.

“This could be useful,” Julis murmured.

“What is it?”

“I do not know.” Julis turned it over in his hands. “I will find out, though. I’ll take it apart…”

Micah watched for a few seconds, then looked around the ruined house again. Dark doorways led into black rooms, and he felt a chill wind sweep past him. He shook his head. “We should keep moving.”

“Yes… I doubt we will find anything else of use here.” Julis nodded. “Let’s go.”

RECORDED TRANSMISSION FROM KHARAVANI PORT TO K2S SUBSET CORRIX WATCH ORBITAL STATION

Kharavani Port (KP): Port to Station.

Corrix Orbital Station (COS): Station here.

KP: We have some… unregulated activity on the ground here.

COS: How do you mean, Port?

KP: We mean we have a small party of mounted humans heading straight for Balasith. Not going around, not veering away. They’re steering clear of us but we’ll have to warn the other inhabitants of the area.

COS: Did the deterrent systems fail?

KP: No. They just… don’t seem to be affected by them. The passive ones, that is. The mist, the sounds, the lights. These guys don’t seem to be paying attention to those at all.

COS: That’s definitely odd. Something must have happened to change their behavior concerning our deterrents.

KP: One of the party members is the king of Edrelle, now that we’re looking at it… looks like he brought his wife and some advisor with him. They’re surrounded by guards on bears.

COS: That’s strange. Warn anyone who still lives in Balasith to get behind the containment barriers and activate the visual and kinetic shields.

KP: Done and done. They’re still headed straight for the city. The advisor seems to be leading the way. Not sure who he is.

COS: We don’t recognize him?

KP: No. They’ve entered the city.

COS: Keep an eye on them.

KP: Port again. They’ve progressed much further into the city now; they’re nearing the kinetic walls.

COS: Are they heading straight for them?

KP: No. They’re clearly exploring. But they don’t seem to be scared of the city, not nearly as much as they should be. Maybe our rumors have died out concerning the hauntings. That seems impossible, though- we spread those constantly, and keep the old wives’ tales alive and well.

COS: If they get to the kinetics-

KP: They just did. The animals won’t go further- they can feel the shields. The king is getting off his, uh, his lion… he’s testing the walls with his hands now. This is really strange. The advisor’s trying them too.

COS: The animals didn’t make them nervous at all?

KP: Apparently not.

COS: This is not good.

KP: They’re turning back now. The barriers did their job. The king probably believes it’s magic.

COS: I certainly hope so, or we _really_ haven’t done our jobs. Keep an eye on this, Port- I don’t like where this situation is going. Try and get rid of any misconceptions about the ports being habitable. Spread new rumors if you have to. Just get the humans back in their normal place.

KP: Roger that, Station. We’ll keep a close eye on this situation. Port out for now.


	15. Snowblind: Ceos

Arkane crested a hill, paused, and looked out over Ceos Research Base. “We’re here,” they reported, turning to look over at Casey and Orca.

Casey struggled up the hill just behind Orca, who came to a stop beside Arkane and glanced over at them. “That’s Ceos?”

“Yes.” Arkane nodded sharply, knowing their words might be muffled too much to understand by their mask.

Orca looked back over at Ceos. “Where are the advanced defenses?”

Arkane shook their head. “I’m not sure. I think…” They paused, glancing down at their storm watch. The datapad glinted in the sunlight, and Arkane shaded it to get a better view of the characters on the reflective screen.

The next blizzard was slated to take place in under fifteen minutes. Arkane considered this carefully. If they couldn’t infiltrate the base without being spotted, they could try and get close enough to find their way in without sight and time it so that when they came within range of most gunfire the storm would protect them. But that’d be beyond risky-

“There,” Orca said suddenly. Arkane glanced up. She was pointing towards a very nondescript-seeming object located on the top of one of the small towers near the corner of the compound closest to the trio. It seemed to be just a normal spire, perhaps a solid radio spire or something. Radio spires were next to useless with the storms, but they still existed.

“I don’t follow.”

“That’s a turret. It’s in a passive mode right now. We come within range of its sensors and it’s going to activate and fire at us faster than you can blink.” Orca shook her head. “We can’t get near that, not while our heat signatures will tell it where we are.”

“How do you know it operates on heat signatures?”

“I don’t. But a lot of things do. On a world where everything is always cold, it’s smart to have guns that activate to shoot at anything hot- although you’d have to allow for the heat signatures of friendly animals or people, and of friendly machines like helicopters and the like.” She scoured the roofline of Ceos, dark eyes narrowed against the glare. “There- there’s another, and another, and… wow.”

Arkane shook their head. “Those weren’t here when I was here last. Shadowside must have installed them.”

“No doubt.”

“How do we get in?” Casey asked, finally catching up and taking stock of the situation. He’d been close enough to hear Orca’s diagnosis of the turret.

“Either we hide ourselves in a friendly heat signature, find a way in that doesn’t put us in the sightline of any turret, or we find a way to mask our heat. The second method doesn’t apply- From what I can see, Shadowside was very thorough about covering all their approach angles- and the first one doesn’t apply either because how the hell are we going to find a friendly heat signature? Although we could pose as couriers heading to Ceos with normal information but then Shadowside might want to read the info and since we don’t have any mail…”

“So what do we do?”

“We can try to mask our heat signatures.”

“How?” Casey shaded his eyes, staring down at the compound. “Thermal sees right through clothing.”

Orca let out a breath. “We can… well, we could try to get close and-“

“No,” Arkane said.

“Come on! What if it’s the only way we can get into the compound?”

“No.”

“What is going on?” Casey asked, befuddled.

Arkane turned to him. “Orca wants to get as close as possible to the compound before the storm hits, then reach the walls under the cover of the snow. The high wind and snow should mess with the thermal sensors enough for us to get by.”

“It’s a good idea and I think it’s our only option!”

“There’s never only one option.” Arkane glared stonily at Ceos. “There’s another way. We just have to find it.”

There was not another way. Arkane resigned themselves to the fact that they were going to have to be outside during the storm. This had happened to Arkane once, and they did not want it to happen again. Purposefully snowblind themselves?! What a horrible idea.

They led their team down the slope, taking cover behind rocks and snowbanks as they went. The turrets didn’t seem to notice them.

Arkane looked up nervously, observing the sky. It seemed perfectly calm, but the watch on their wrist indicated that in less than two minutes it would become utter hell. They needed to get closer to the wall before then-

One minute. Arkane’s watch let out a warning beep; they silenced any further noises by falsely telling it they were safe.

Thirty seconds. Still the sky gave no warning of its intentions. Arkane led them behind another piece of cover a little closer, and saw one of the closer turrets suddenly activate, swiveling up to look around. They swallowed. Now they were really in danger, not only from the storm but from the turrets. If Orca’s plan didn’t work, if she was wrong about the thermal sensors…

Arkane stared at their goal, a rock near the base of the wall. They fixed their entire focus upon it, crouching behind their cover, waiting until it was time so they could run for it, memorizing the layout of the land to avoid losing their way-

The storm hit.

It descended like a curtain- a sudden darkening in the sky and then wind, slamming Arkane back against the rock. Panicked, they forced themselves to look out again, and caught sight of their rock-goal before the snow obscured everything.

Snowblinded.

The word held terror for all of them, and Arkane remembered with a jolt the one time they’d been snowblinded before, trapped inside a whirling vortex. The storm had lasted only four minutes, but for those four minutes, Arkane had huddled in place, completely vulnerable, completely isolated, unable to move.

That was one of the rules of being a stormrunner. If you’re snowblinded, you stop moving and stay exactly where you are, unless you’re in immediate danger. Once you’re snowblinded you are essentially directionless and many a stormrunner had stumbled forwards in a storm, trying to cover more ground, only to find that they actually had gone backwards, or sideways, and gotten completely lost. Worse, some stormrunners moved and ended up falling into crevasses and down steep cliffs. No, staying in one spot was always the safest option.

But that is exactly what they needed to not do. Arkane fixed the position of the rock in their mind- they were the steadiest runner- and grabbed Casey and Orca, one hand of each.

“Go!” they shouted, and began to pull the other two forwards.

The three stumbled forwards, running clumsily through the snow. Arkane prayed they were going the right direction; glancing down at their datapad, they realized they could barely see the outline of the black screen through the whirling snow.

“We’re dead,” Casey shouted behind Arkane. “We’re so dead. We’re so dead!”

“Shut up!” Orca yelled back.

They continued forwards. Arkane put their head down and charged forwards-

They hit a wall.

“Oof,” Arkane said, stumbling backwards, after running straight into the gray wall of Ceos Research Base. Their hood fell off and the wind immediately whipped their hair into knots, and the impact jolted Orca’s hand out of theirs. She grabbed for their hood instead.

“What is it?” Orca called, sounding concerned about the sudden stop.

“I hit the wall.” Arkane shouted back.

“Oh. Now we just need a way in!” It was impossible to be heard without shouting in the storm winds.

“Fantastic!” Casey raised one hand to shadow his eyes as if it would help block out the snow. Arkane could barely see the other runner’s outline in the whipping snow. “And how do we do that?”

“That’s mostly up to Arkane; They know the layout, right?”

“Right.” Arkane tried to visualize the base from above, trying to remember if there were any ways in that weren’t monitored. “There’s a drainage culvert on the side to… to our right,” they said after a moment. “If we go into it we can try to break up through one of the storm drains in the courtyard.”

“And if we can’t?”

“We try another storm drain.” Arkane shrugged, though nobody else could see it. “There has to be one that’s loose. I remember tripping over one at least once. So let’s go…”

The three of them followed the wall to the right, each keeping one hand on the smooth gray surface. Wind tore at Arkane’s hood; their breath rasped in the respirator.

Before long the ground dipped down dramatically, and Arkane stumbled and fell into a ditch. Orca, who had been holding onto their hood, went with, and a flailing hand caught Casey down and brought him down as well.

Fortunately, there was snow in the ditch. Unfortunately, they lost connection with the wall.

“Nobody panic,” Arkane ordered.

“We’re so dead,” Casey shouted.

Arkane reached out, but felt only snow. “Everyone feel in front of them. But don’t move.”

“I found the wall,” Orca called after a second. “Over- oh, hey, no, I found a grate. Is this the grate you mentioned earlier?”

“Probably.” Arkane reached over and felt a cylinder of steel. “Yes, this is the right grate.”

“Great! How do we get through there?”

“It’s small enough that we can just squeeze on through,” Arkane told Casey. “Probably. I’ll give it a try.”

“What?”

“Wait here.” Arkane pulled themselves up and squinted through their goggles at the grate. The bars were visible if they moved close. Frowning, Arkane moved their hand between two of the bars. They seemed to be a fair distance apart; most likely Arkane could get through…

They turned sideways and tried to sidle through. It worked. Inside the grate tunnel was no less chaotic than the outside, but Arkane saw less snow when they peered deeper into the tunnel, so perhaps the wind was less back there.

“I can get through, so both of you can. Come on,” Arkane called to Orca and Casey. “Follow my voice, grab my hand. I think the wind lessens further in.”

Casey managed to get through the grate without a problem, though Orca’s coat got caught on one of the bars. She tugged it free with a muffled curse.

The drainage tunnel was absurdly large for a drainage tunnel. Arkane had to crouch, but it was easy to navigate. The tunnel was easy to get through, until it branched.

“Oh,” Arkane said, staring down both branches of the tunnel.

“Is it supposed to do that?”

“I mean, yes, but I didn’t know.” Arkane paused to adjust their goggles.

Orca glared at them from behind. “Why not?”

“I’m a courier. I choose to not spend my time lurking in the storm drains around the base,” Arkane said testily. “So I do not know the layout of the tunnels. My apologies.”

“No need to get annoyed,” Orca muttered.

Arkane chose not to respond to that. They looked between the tunnels and picked the one on the right, guessing randomly based on the fact that they’d come in close to the edge of the compound.

It was the right choice. After a short time walking, their breaths steaming in the subterranean cold, Arkane noticed there was a grate in the ceiling. Light wasn’t shining through – it appeared to be blocked up.

“Snow,” they muttered, and sighed.

“What is it?”

“The grates are blocked by snow. We’ll have to wait until they clear them off and then leave once the crews are gone.”

“Crews?”

“The workers who maintain the grounds.” Arkane gestured vaguely, unsure of how to explain the maintenance crews. Though Xovan didn’t have a freeze-thaw cycle, the snow and ice could still severely damage structures if not cleared and taken care of. Didn’t Tyto have those…?

Orca shook her head. “Not important. We can’t wait until the crews come and clean those off. It’ll be impossible to get out without being seen.”

“What is it you suggest we do, then?” Arkane inquired politely.

“Get out now. How much snow is on top of the grate? It can’t be that heavy.”

Incredulous, Arkane watched as Orca marched over to the grate and shoved her gloved hand in between the bars, punching up into the snow. Her hand vanished up to the wrist, and she stretched to her full height, eyes narrowing the whole time.

“Alright,” she muttered after a moment, recovering her hand. “Maybe there’s more snow than I thought.”

“The shape of the courtyard traps large drifts of snow.” Arkane took Orca’s arm and tugged her gently over to a clear spot in the tunnel. “We’ll wait until the crews have cleaned it out.”

They did. Arkane’s storm timer beeped to let them know the winds outside had ceased, and not long after they heard muffled voices and watched the snow be scraped away from the grate. A lot of it was actually shoved through the bars, plopping down into the sewer tunnel to melt and run off through the culvert.

Once the voices had gone, Orca examined the grate. “A few bolts,” she muttered, running her gloved hands over the metal. She extracted a set of tools from somewhere within her bulky snowsuit and removed the bolts, setting them down in a pocket of the wall where the mortar had crumbled away, leaving a loose brick. Once they were out, she pushed the grate up and away, then pulled herself up and out into the courtyard.

“It’s clear,” she called down. Arkane boosted Casey out, as the young stormrunner didn’t have the physical strength to get out alone, then climbed easily out themselves.

The courtyard was still. Arkane remembered it well – the snow-covered bushes and trees, weighed down with heavy ice crystals after a storm, and the cracked cobblestone paving that they hardly ever saw because of the snow. The sun was melting that snow now. It steamed on the dark stones.

“Where to now?” Orca asked, sliding the heavy grate back into place over the storm drain.

Arkane chewed their lip, thinking. “Ursa told us to… hmm. We need to find someone who knows about the project they were working on that Shadowside wants. Most of the researches don’t know about it, and they would actually turn us in. So we must be careful.”

“You lived here. “You know which scientists we can trust, right?”

“I cannot be sure. Ursa told us they’d imprisoned the most knowledgeable ones; all the scientists I’m familiar with may be out of commission.”

“Right.” Orca frowned at the cobblestones. “This… we’re really obvious just standing here. This makes me nervous.”

“Agreed.” Arkane glanced around. “That door – that one, over there – should take us into the compound with only a simple card swipe. Though if I swipe us in, it’ll notify the security that I’ve entered and, they will know I am here.”

“Oh, I can help with this!” Casey, who had until now been staring around obliviously at his surroundings, perked up and hurried forwards towards the indicated door. “Hold on. I’ll get us in.”

“What are you doing?”

“I’ll just… uhh, the door will think the last person who went in went in again. That’s it. So a member of the cleaning crew, right?”

“Right.”

“Great.” Casey fiddled with the card swiper, removing the plastic coating and doing something to it that Arkane couldn’t fully see and didn’t quite understand.

“You sure about this, Ark?” Orca whispered. “I don’t trust this kid not to set off every alarm Ceos has.”

Arkane held up a hand, shushing her. “Let’s wait and see what happens,” they replied quietly. “If the alarms go off, so be it. We retreat to the storm drain. If not, then we have nothing to worry about.”

Orca hmmphed through her bandana. “I don’t know. I just – “

“You know more of Casey than I do,” Arkane said. “Why do you not trust him?”

“I – well, no, I don’t know him very well. I don’t usually work with the postal service and he does. Tyto’s bigger than just a few above-ground prefab buildings, you know.”

“Yes.” Arkane nodded patiently.

“We work in different areas. But he always seemed kind of shady, and a few times we’ve had really weird electrical problems that he both caused and fixed. I’m not sure I – “

“Got it!” Casey called back. Arkane and Orca glanced over; the door had clicked open. Casey had it propped on his foot and was fitting the plastic case back onto the card swiper. “See?”

“Well done,” Arkane murmured, impressed. “That’s quite impressive.”

“Thanks.” Casey glowed with pride.

The three hurried in and let the door shut behind them. Arkane brought up a layout of Ceos on their datapad and went over it, trying to discern where this top-secret project would be. Probably in the high-containment lab, they thought, and started in that direction.

Every time they heard someone coming, they ducked into empty rooms until the people had passed. A few times it was scientists, but they also noticed armed and armored individuals on patrol. Arkane stayed silent and their team followed suit. They didn’t want to engage people who had guns and were trained to use them.

Near the containment lab, they had to take cover in a room that was occupied, and did so in time to see a young group of scientists glance up in surprise.

“Er,” Casey went, staring at them.

Arkane let the door fall closed behind them, hoping those in the hallway wouldn’t notice. “Hello,” they said, pulling their respirator down and lifting their goggles up. “I take it you remember who I am?”

“Of course we do,” one of the scientists snorted, as another one said, “Hello, Arkane.”

The second speaker was a tall man with dark hair and a deceptively kind face. “Nice to have you back,” he continued. “Did you happen to have an encounter with a friend of ours on your way here?”

“I did, unfortunately,” Arkane said, and sighed, shaking their head. “A sad ending for a gifted scientist.”

The man looked shocked, but Arkane shook their head imperceptibly again and smiled, staring directly into the man’s face. He relaxed slightly; he seemed to understand, though he looked a little shaken.

“Truly a… a shame. Well, she refused to cooperate with our new backers, so…” he shrugged. “She reaped what she sowed.”

“Retribution is swift,” Arkane murmured, and shifted position, leaning on a counter. “That is not why I am here. We got here during the storm; it was very stressful. I’m afraid I won’t be staying long, either – I have more to deliver, to some other colonies, and up to Holy Song mountain.”

The man decrypted this admittedly not very deep scrambling of Hallowtone’s name and nodded. “Well, we won’t keep you,” he said lightly, smiling. “Wouldn’t dare stop a courier from their job. How about you get something to eat and then you can head out again?”

“What’s going on.” Orca hissed. She was tense, on edge; Arkane silenced her with a hand.

“That would be wonderful,” they said to the scientist. “Please, lead the way.”

The man bowed his head. “Follow me.”

Arkane beckoned to Casey and Orca. They followed the scientist as he led them through the complex maze of hallways – even Arkane was lost after a while – and down a few staircases to a large and secure-looking door. Somehow, they did not encounter a single patrol on the way there, though they did pass by a few small groups of quiet and hurried-looking scientists who were darting through the halls.

“One moment,” the scientist said, and scanned them in with a card. The door unlocked and he heaved it open, gesturing that Arkane and their team enter before he did.

Arkane eyed the door. It seemed very secure, and he wasn’t entirely sure who this man was. They wanted to ask where this led, but there was a high chance that Shadowside had bugged every possible location within the base. And he had seemed quite disturbed by the news of Ursa’s fate, false or otherwise… and he had known about her escape immediately. Chances were this man was their side.

I will take my chances, Arkane thought, and walked through the door. Orca and Casey followed.

Once they were through, they proceeded down a short hallway to yet another doorway. Arkane could see through the thick class that there was an elevator beyond.

The man let them through the door, for the first time showing signs of impatience. This time, when it locked behind him, he turned to Arkane with visible relief on his face and said, “Ursa is alive?”

“Yes.” Arkane nodded. So their analysis of the situation had been correct. “She made it to Tyto and fetched us here. She was recovering when we left.”

“Thank the gods,” the man sighed, closing his eyes and leaning against the wall. “I know she got shot – I watched it happen. I had feared the worst when she was gone, but I know how tough she is… she managed to warn you. She can tell her story to the Tyto authorities, right?”

“I don’t know if that’s what she’ll do, but she can. She had another task for us,” Arkane replied. “We’re to take the experiment she was working on – I assume you know what that is – and transport it…” they stopped, glancing around. “We’re safe here?”

“In this hallway only. No cameras or bugs here. There are bugs in the elevator.”

“We must take it to Hallowtone, as I assume you know from my statement earlier.”

“Yes.” The scientist frowned. “I had assumed Hallowtone had activated their safety protocols a while back and were now miles deep in ice, but…”

“Evidently that is not the case.”

“Excuse me,” Orca snapped, “but can someone _please_ explain what’s going on?”

“Oh – I forgot to ask. Who might these be?” the scientist glanced over to Orca and Casey.

“Sasinawa Orca – Ursa’s sister, and a mechanic and defense specialist from Tyto – and Anatol Casey, another stormrunner and postal servant.” Orca glared defiantly at the scientist while Casey beamed, delighted to be identified as a courier.

The man nodded. “I’m Mark,” he said, a bit belatedly. “Sorry about not introducing myself earlier. I… assume your companions are trustworthy?”

“Orca saved my life once already, or at least my reputation,” Arkane replied, smiling.

“You know I did,” she muttered.

“As for Casey, he is… knowledgeable when it comes to electronics and devices,” Arkane said carefully. “His experience and prowess is invaluable.”

Casey did not respond by this, too pleased by the compliment to speak.

Mark gestured towards the elevator. “No time to waste,” he said. “After we go down, we’ll be safe. The elevator won’t set off any alarms. But once you take Project Stormlight, the entire facility will be on high alert. You’ll have to fight and sneak your way out of here without getting shot or letting Stormlight be damaged.”

“Fantastic.” Out of the corner of their eye, Arkane saw Orca fiddle with her sidearm, a small weapon strapped to her left leg. Arkane shifted their backpack and remembered that it was there. “Will there be any supplies we might be able to take?”

“Oh, certainly,” Mark replied. “You’re welcome to anything we have.”

“Our thanks.”

“The honor is ours.”

Orca rolled her eyes at this elaborate exchange. They summoned the elevator and took a two minute ride down to the lab.”

It looked just like any other lab, the only difference being the level of security surrounding the entry and exit. Mark seemed nervous.

“Project Stormlight is being kept in those freezers,” he told them, indicating a large silver box with a door on the front. “It needs to be kept very cold, but not too cold. We don’t want the eggs hatching in the warmth, but we don’t want to kill them.”

“Eggs?”

Mark froze, color draining out of his face. “I’ve said too much already,” he muttered.

“Oh, relax!” Orca sighed. “We might as well know what this thing is if we’re going to lug it all the way to –“

“Orca!”

She stopped, looking over at Arkane in shock. They never snapped or raised their voice, and she was startled. Arkane was astonished that she would come so close to saying the true name of their destination in a bugged area, and in fact that she would mention their purpose at all. They were trying to keep quiet.

“No.” Mark shook his head. “I can’t talk about it.”

Arkane and their team resupplied, taking what Mark offered from nearby cabinets. It seemed almost as if he had prepared for this; they found and took dried food, first aid, anything light that would help them. Arkane found a silky loop of white rope and smiled; they’d lost one of their last ropes. It had frayed and snapped while they were traversing a mountain; a new one was welcome. They could get rope in the courier stops, but it wasn’t as high-quality as this rope. And there was usually food and first aid within the stops as well… but that couldn’t be counted on, as it was more difficult than it seemed to resupply those tiny buildings in the middle of nowhere, especially those on lesser-used routes.

But they could only stall for so long. Finally, they had no choice but to continue with their plan.

“This is Project Stormlight,” Arkane murmured, staring at the freezer. “How are we to, ah, remove it…?”

“Oh, you needn’t take the freezer,” Mark muttered back, trying to speak so the bugs wouldn’t pick up their words. “Just take the box inside. They’ll be fine as long as you get outside soon enough. You’ll need to keep them exposed to snow and air fairly often, or they’ll hatch.”

“Mm-hm.” Arkane nodded, frowning slightly. “This is… not optimal. How large are the containers?”

Mark moved his hands through the air, defining a small box shape. Perhaps the size of a shoe box, set on its end.

“That shouldn’t be a problem,” Casey whispered.

“And when the alarms are going off and we have to navigate back through the maze of Ceos’ hallways while being, presumably, shot at?”

“That’s up to you,” Mark said, raising his hands. “I have no experience there.”

“But the hallways.”

“I can give you my map,” he sighed. “That’s all I can do.”

“That will suffice, thank you.”

Mark transferred his map onto Arkane’s datapad, who shared it with Orca and Casey. “We may have to split up,” they murmured, staring at the map.

“Absolutely not,” Orca countered. “That’s a really great way to get killed.”

“You are right, that is a terrible idea.” Arkane nodded.

They devised a plan, which really boiled down to ‘run.’

Then Arkane opened the freezer door and carefully lifted out a small brown box with handles. No alarms yet, but as soon as the box left the containment lab, there would be.

“What’s the easiest way to carry this?” Arkane puzzled, staring at it.

“Strap it to someone’s back?” Orca suggested.

“How fragile are the eggs?” Casey asked, looking over at Mark.

He shook his head. “Not very,” he told them. “The shells are leathery. Besides, they’re well padded. Strapping it to your back would be fine.”

Arkane nodded. “I will take it,” they determined. “Orca, I want you to cover me. Casey, you will be my eyes ahead.”

“Got it.” Orca folded her arms, shifting her stance. Casey nodded and wrung his hands nervously.

“Good luck,” Mark said. “I’ll ride the elevator back up with you, but then I’m gone.”

“Understood.”

When they pushed the door open, there was a brief moment where nothing happened. The couriers stopped and glanced up in the silence.

“Is that…?” Arkane said out loud, puzzled.

Orca stared at Mark and opened her mouth to say something.

A high-pitched wail immediately sounded, drowning out whatever she was about to say. Arkane winced and hurried into the elevator. Their team followed and Arkane waited nervously as the doors closed and Mark punched the ‘up’ button a few times.

The elevator went up. The ride was excruciating. The alarms faded, then returned, the sharp wail now joined by a looping, upscaling siren, and when the doors opened Arkane was fully expecting to face a hail of bullets.

There were none. Puzzled, Arkane glanced out and saw no people. Mark beckoned and they hurried towards the end of the hallway, through the heavy doors, and towards safety. The hallways branched into a labyrinthine mess of identical corridors, but Arkane’s map was accurate and a highlighted line led them in a safe path to the courtyard.

Well, almost safe.

They passed a side hallway, heading for the yard, and saw around the corner of it about twenty meters away a group of armed people in black armor. One of them glanced over, seeing movement, and caught sight of Arkane and their team. Arkane acutely felt the weight of the cold box on their shoulders.

“Hey!” one of the armed people shouted.

Arkane nearly froze. What to do? What to do?! If they ran, the men would surely fire. And if they ran, the bullets – if they didn’t hit Arkane – might hit the box they were carrying…

“Run!” shouted someone behind them, and Arkane glanced back to see Mark trailing them, holding a brown box. “I’ll take the eggs and get to safety. Get out of here!”

But the eggs… the box…?

Mark’s eyes flashed in fear. Arkane understood – he was purposefully misleading the guards. A diversion.

“This isn’t worth it,” they shouted to their team. “Let’s get out of here.”

Orca and Casey, miraculously, understood. They followed Arkane and vanished down the hall while the armed men pursued Mark in the opposite direction. Arkane flinched when they heard gunfire.

The map jittered on Arkane’s datapad as they ran. They tried to concentrate on the highlighted path – left, second right, left, third left, right –

A door. Arkane put their head down and arms up and busted through the door, slamming it open and emerging into the courtyard from earlier. It took a few seconds to orient themselves and locate the drainage grate they’d come through earlier, and they dashed over. “Go, go, go!”

Orca heaved the grate up. Casey umped down into the drain, and Orca followed. Halfway through the ump the door burst open again and armed men poured into the courtyard. Arkane made for the drain –


	16. The Amelia: The Kalyrio Situation

“We’re coming in hot,” Vari muttered over the eavesdropper, and Raleigh stifled a laugh. She ran a routine scan of the space around the ship-

There. Again. She picked up faint puffs of escaping emissions from a leaky heat sink of some kind, and frowned. What was going on here with that damn ghost ship? Why was it following them? Again, she tried to pull up a visual on the rear-facing cameras, but they showed her nothing. Typical. A ship with an emissions cloaking system and some distance between it and her could be totally invisible. Or maybe it was just out of the camera range.

She sighed and turned her attention to their target.

The Amelia was docking at Kalyrio High Port, to drop off some goods and verify their registry with the Traders’ Fleet. Raleigh minimized the display concerning the rear-facing cameras and brought up the kinetic barrier displays.

“How does this display work?”

Raleigh smiled. Next to her, settled comfortably in a small niche next to her chair, was Kthfthkthir. Its datapad glowed as the message it typed was relayed in that soft, smooth voice.

“It’s holographic,” Raleigh explained. “The light is mostly for my benefit. It actually works by following invisible lasers targeting tracking dots in my fingertips. And the main screen is a holoscreen, actually a physical screen, laced with pressure-sensitive diodes. So when I touch any part of it, it knows.”

“You have dots in your fingers? Explain, please.”

“They’re typical pilot implants.” Raleigh shrugged. “It’s really hard to pilot a ship without them, since most displays are holographic these days.”

“Not true. The fyaeiarnae do not use holographic displays.”

“At all?”

“Correct.”

This gave Raleigh pause. “Huh,” she said after a minute. “Well… how do they control their ships, then?”

“I do not know as much of the inner workings of biological spaceships as I would like,” Kthfthkthir apologized. “I do not know. My apologies.”

“Oh, don’t worry about it.”

“T.F.S. Amelia to Kalyrio High Port Control,” Vari called, evidently radioing the port below them. They were hovering in orbit above the Ring, waiting for the go-ahead to dock.

“Kalyrio High Port to the Amelia, we read you.”

“Requesting clearance to dock, Port.”

“Your arrival is scheduled; you are expected. You are clear to enter the atmosphere and dock in Section R, port nineteen-two-five-six, bay forty-seven.”

“Geez,” Raleigh murmured. “There are a lot of ships here…”

“To what are you responding?”

She’d momentarily forgotten Kthfthkthir. “Oh! Um. Well… ah, fine. Don’t tell anyone, but I have an eavesdropping program that lets me hear everything that happens in the cockpit. I actually… don’t really know why it hasn’t been found out and shut down yet, but… it’s interesting. And instructional, sometimes.”

“So it is beneficial to you.”

“Yeah, you could say that.”

“Then why would you keep quiet about it?”

“Because… It’s not supposed to exist? It’s rude to listen in on people’s conversations without them knowing. And I think it might be illegal or something, to listen in, unless it’s sanctioned by the pilot.” She shrugged. “I probably should have looked that up before I made the program but it’s a little late for that now.”

Kthfthkthir paused, doing something on its datapad. A moment later, it looked up at her again. “It is illegal unless approved. The pilot, commanding officer, or executive officer of the ship can approve such a program, with or without the knowledge of the other officers or the pilot.”

“Huh.” Go figure. “Well, I don’t think that matters that much to me because you and I are the only one that knows about it as far as I can tell. If Vari finds out… I don’t think he’d be that mad, but I’m just gonna stay quiet all the same.”

Kthfthkthir made the strange gesture where it rolled its arms, all four of them, which meant the same thing as a shrug.

The Amelia glided down through the thin atmosphere of Kalyrio, down through the smog to the massive spaceport that reached miles into the sky and into the core of the Ring. Raleigh, working the camera views, was momentarily taken aback by the sheer amount of space traffic that must pass through on a daily basis.

Around them were thousands of ships, all going to different places, some sailing serenely along and others darting between the slower-moving traffic like minnows. Raleigh stared for a few seconds before remembering her duties and shutting off the eavesdropper to listen to Vari’s commands in her own comm set.

“Raleigh, regulate the barriers when we dock. Don’t want the clamps bouncing off the kinetics.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Seriously?”

“Sorry.”

A sigh from Vari. Raleigh had forgotten that both he and the commander did not like being addressed formally. She wondered if it had something to do with the ship they’d transferred from.

Someone cleared their throat. Raleigh glanced up to see Misalu looking over her shoulder, and sighed. “What do you want, doctor?”

“Are we docking?”

No, Raleigh was tempted to snap. We’re taking a pit stop on the moon. “Yes,” she said instead. “Kalyrio High Port.”

“Ah. Good.” Misalu nodded once and moved away.

What’s that supposed to mean? Raleigh wondered, but did not have the time to ask.

The Amelia swept in and headed for her assigned dock. Vari had apparently forgotten to turn his comms off, because Raleigh could hear him muttering to himself about the ship, running through the docking procedure quietly. She wondered if he did this all the time.

“Come on, darling… alright, and under that… good. Neat. Very clean. Good job. And over… skip past that- whoa! Backdraft from a Manta firing its engine. Not cool. You’re alright, old girl… fantastic.”

Smooth as a snake, the Amelia slide into her dock, subjets firing to keep her in place while the support came up from below and she settled down onto it. The clamps gently attached to her slender form, and Vari sighed.

“And we’re set. Thank you, Raleigh. And thanks, secondaries, that was a flawless docking. Good job.”

Raleigh glowed with pride, even though she hadn’t really done much.

The commander let the crew know that while they were on Kalyrio, which they would be for a couple weeks doing business, they were free to roam around the station as long as they got back to the Amelia when they left.

This, perhaps, was not the best idea.

It didn’t seem like a bad idea. The crew were capable; they could take care of themselves in a strange place. They were used to it from traveling around on a spaceship. And this area was predominantly human, as well.

Raleigh found herself, bored with the ship near the end of their visit, wandering through a crowded marketplace at some point, perhaps a week and a half into her stay. Kalyrio High Port was astonishing to her- she’d never been in a spaceport so large. The entirety of Kalyrio was one massive city, really, though some parts weren’t as inhabited as others. She couldn’t count the number of alien cultures mixing together, many of which she did not recognize in the slightest. She did see several other khavvichthi, and while she told this to Kthfthkthir, it only accompanied her out of the ship a few times, and hid itself away from them for shame of its legs.

The two that had been shattered by Gelowsky’s bullets could not be saved. They’d been replaced with robotic prosthetics, fully functional and partially bioengineered. Kthfthkthir could feel them and use them just like real legs, and they were stronger, but it was clear they were not its original limbs: they were dull silver against its black coloring. Raleigh was extremely impressed with Doctor Vivaki’s work, and had said so several times, but Kthfthkthir seemed to think that it was a shameful thing to have lost its legs.

“Why?” Raleigh asked once.

“Hmm.” It paused, clicking its mandibles a few times to think. Raleigh watched it nervously rub its pedipalps together while thinking of what to ‘say.’ “Khavvichthi pride ourselves on our intelligence, but also on our agility. It is a shameful thing to see that I could not avoid being harmed. I was too slow, you see.”

“You weren’t, though,” Raleigh had told it, confused. “You were busy.”

“We are supposed to be fast.”

“You couldn’t have been faster!”

Kthfthkthir had hung its head slightly. “You have not seen a khavvichthi trying to move quickly, if you think I was fast.”

Raleigh didn’t have any solid arguments to this.

Kthfthkthir wasn’t with her now. She was wandering the port alone-

“Oh, Raleigh.”

Not alone, apparently. She turned and found none other than Misalu standing behind her, hands behind his back. “Hello,” she said warily.

He looked around. “This place is marvelous, I must say.”

“Yes, I agree.” What was he doing?

“I also must confess that I am lost,” he continued, looking directly at her. “I was out conducting some business in the area and got a bit turned around. Do you know how to get back to the ship from here?”

“I do,” Raleigh answered. “It’s back down the southwest boulevard, then follow the patterning on the floor that looks like a double helix. Then it’s the second left and it’ll take you to an elevator that goes to the docks. It shouldn’t be hard to find your way from there.”

“You have a remarkable sense of direction,” Misalu told her, bowing his thanks. “That will serve you well.”

Was that supposed to be prophetic or something? Raleigh wondered, frowning slightly. “Thanks,” she said, unsure of why he was complimenting her now. Maybe it was innocent, maybe not.

“Well, I’d better go,” Misalu said cheerfully. “Don’t want to get caught up in the next hour’s rush.”

What? Raleigh stared after him, perplexed, as he hurried off through the crowds. Alright. She wasn’t sure what ‘next hour’s rush’ was supposed to mean, or what ‘business’ a fyaeiarnae scientist would have to conduct in a port he didn’t know he was docking in, but it wasn’t really her place to know his business, now, was it?

If it hurt the ship it was, she remembered, and thought suddenly of the ghost ship.

Perhaps Misalu wasn’t working for the Amelia.

Just seconds after she thought this, wandering along in the market place, she found herself in a suddenly secluded area behind some crates. She’d wandered in- whoops- and turned to go-

Something grabbed her from behind and laid a cloth over her face. She fought viciously, trying to break free, but fell unconscious in minutes.

-

“No, my crew is not all accounted for,” snarled Charis, knotting her hands together painfully. “I have absolutely no idea where she is! No one seems to have seen her for hours. She knows that she has to report back here or at least send word of where she is. I don’t know where she is!”

“Commander, please-“

“Don’t!”

“Elmina.” Vari levelled his gaze, staring at her from his seat in the secluded bridge cockpit. “Come on. Calm down. I’m sure she’s just late-“

“No! Raleigh is never late. Something must have happened.” Charis paced back and forth, hands clasped behind her back. “Something must have happened!”

“Like what?”

As if on cue, a message came in from the Port security. “We have a situation.”

“Define ‘situation,’” Charis sighed, rubbing her head. “I have a situation too. Mine needs dealing with.”

“So does this one.” The screen came to life as Vari transferred the comms over to the main bridge screen. It was a news report, live, from somewhere in or around Kalyrio High Port.

“We have a hostage situation in Kalyrio Port here, where an unidentified criminal organization has taken several port workers and visitors hostage and are demanding that they be given a ship. The workers and visitors are unidentified as of yet-“

Charis was staring at the screen, frozen. “Raleigh,” she finally whispered, and still did not move.

“The hostages are being held inside the recently abandoned Wihla Productions Kalyrio Branch building, and have a very defensible position. Police forces are trying to negotiate with the captors, but so far nothing has been decided.”

A pause. The bridge was silent- Vari stayed quiet, knowing Charis was thinking. The other bridge crew members looked over at her nervously.

“This is just in! The captors have released a picture of their hostages, so that they can be identified and potentially ransomed.”

Charis squinted. The picture popped up on the screen, and there she was, head hanging low with her curly brown hair over her face. The uniform was unmistakable.

“That is Raleigh,” confirmed a small voice to Charis’ left. She glanced down and saw Kthfthkthir also looking at the screen.

“How did she end up there?” Charis wondered despondently, dropping her hands to her sides. “How… what happened?”

“I did see Miss Tereiti wandering the marketplace several hours ago,” said a pleasant voice to Charis’ left. She turned to see Misalu standing there, looking placidly at the screen. “She must have walked somewhere she shouldn’t have been.”

“Do you know something about this that I don’t?” Charis demanded, glaring at him.

“No, Commander,” Misalu told her, not looking away from the screen. “I’m simply trying to help you. She was there, now she is evidently there, captured. I assume you will want to get her back.”

“Yes. I’m going to go get her.” Charis spun, heading for the door.

Vari managed to get up and snatch her arm as she passed. “Whoa there, Commander! Hold on just a hot minute here.”

“No!”

“You can’t just go charging in. They’ll kill the hostages. Meaning Raleigh.” Vari gestured at the screen. “We need to plan something like this. You should know that. Don’t let your emotions get in the way of your logic. You’re smarter than that, Elmina.”

Charis fumed for a few seconds, controlling herself. She clenched and flexed her fists. “Very well,” she finally said, voice icy. “What is it you suggest we do?”

Vari cautiously let go of her arm. “You need a small team. What are you planning on doing? Stealing Raleigh? Taking out the criminals?”

“Killing them.”

“O-kay. Um. How about we just incapacitate them and leave them for the local law enforcement officers?”

“No one touches a crew member of my ship without permission and lives to tell about it,” Charis growled, lowering her head slightly. “They will know death.”

“That’s a little melodramatic, don’t you think?” Vari said nervously.

“No. I’m going to kill them.”

“Well, do it quietly, and make sure they all don’t know until they’re all dead. To keep the hostages safe. But do you really think you should kill-“

The main display updated. “The criminals have shown that they are perfectly willing to commit drastic acts of violence in order to get what they wanted. The hostages they deemed useless they have killed. The families of the others contacted these terrorists soon enough to prevent their loved ones from dying.”

“Raleigh…”

Another photo. Some of the hostages were missing, but Raleigh was still in the picture, though now on her knees with her hands tied behind her back. Evidently something had gone wrong and she had caused some trouble. Despite the enormity of the trouble they were in, Charis felt a stir of pride for Raleigh. None of Charis’ crew would go out without a fight. Ever.

“She is alright,” Kthfthkthir ‘said,’ sounding very relieved. “I was concerned that the men with guns would harm her.”

“Not yet,” Charis murmured. “But we need to get her back.”

Kthfthkthir typed a few words. “This is the right path of action.”

“I’m glad you agree. How quickly can you move with those legs?”

“As quickly as I could before.”

Charis gestured towards the screen. “What can you do to help us with this situation?”

“Not very much, I am afraid,” Kthfthkthir reported back seconds later, seeming ashamed. “My knowledge is in ships and engines. I am no use in combat, nor have I any functionality concerning diplomacy. I can disable any kind of ship, and change her performance, and link computers and hack. Additionally, I possess a certain degree of skill when dealing with electronic devices from a distance. But that is the extent of my abilities.”

Sighing, Charis shook her head. “Call Doctor Vivaki here,” she snapped. “She is coming with me. You too, Kthfthkthir.”

“No one else?”

“No. A small team is better. We might even avoid the cops.”

“Rrrright, because that’s what we’re trying to do,” Vari said flatly, confused. “That makes so much sense to me.”

“Quit.” Charis glanced over as one of the bridge crew put in the call for Vivaki. “I don’t want to hear it.”

“Okay, but, the cops could help us.”

“Or the cops could hinder our progress and we would not be able to get to Raleigh before she dies. I’m leaving, and I’m staying clear of the cops until we have Raleigh and we can run.” She paused. “I’m security. I’m basically the cops anyways.”

“I really don’t think that logic isn’t going to hold up in court, but go for it.” Vari put his hands up. “I trust your experience, commander. Do what you like. I’ll be ready to pull us out of here whenever you need me to.”

“Good.” Doctor Vivaki appeared on the bridge, and Charis hurried off. “Come on, Kthfthkthir. Ah, Tessana…”

Vari shook his head, half out of exasperation, half out of worry. The commander was prone to acting on strong emotions, but she usually kept herself in check. Not now, evidently. Vari settled himself back in the cockpit and checked over the ship’s systems. It wasn’t great, not having Raleigh to take care of a lot of this for him…

“We can always get a new navigator,” he tried muttering to himself, but the words rang hollow and he knew it. They had to get Raleigh back.

-

Charis strode through the packed streets, heading towards the location people around her were desperately trying to flee from. Kthfthkthir was easily keeping pace with its many legs, although Doctor Vivaki appeared to be having some trouble.

“Commander-“

“Hurry.”

Vivaki stumbled. “Oof!”

Charis glanced back at her. “Come on! We need to hurry.”

“If you don’t mind me asking,” purred a rough, somewhat scratchy voice to their right, “what are you doing?”

Charis turned, ready to get rid of whatever new obstacle was in their path, and found herself confronted by an oddly shaped creature about the size of a horse. The head was adorned with a feathered crest at least two feet long at its best, and the face was ringed with smaller feathers. Its shape overall was similar to that of a cat’s, though its back legs were a lot longer than its front and it seemed to have a short torso. Its shoulders and hips were adorned with more feathers, and its long tail was plumed with long, thin strands of feathery material. The creature overall was a miasma of shimmering purple hues, with accents of bright red and blue, and brilliant yellow eyes.

A vikyrelle, Charis realized. Avian in genetics, draconic in appearance, minus the wings. They had four limbs, though they possessed the ability to walk on their hind legs like a biped or on all fours.

“Rescuing a… a friend,” Charis managed, still staring.

“From the hostage situation?”

“Yes.”

“May I join you?” The vikyrelle bowed its head. Charis, desperately mining her brain for information, remembered that the vikyrelle had three main genders- males, who could breed with females, who laid eggs, which were taken care of by xiales, who were the only ones that had a body temperature high enough to incubate them. This vikyrelle appeared to be the third gender, judging by the coloration. Xiales were typically the blandest color schemes of the three, as they had evolved camouflage to prevent predators from seeing them in their nests. Vikyrelle were not well endowed in the ways of natural weaponry.

“Why?”

“A friend of mine was captured, and was in the first picture of the captives,” the vikyrelle told Charis. “I want to see them safely returned to their home.”

“Sure. Tag along. Just don’t get in the way.” Charis resumed walking.

The vikyrelle fell in step with Charis and her small squad, long legs easily keeping pace with the commander. “Thank you. My name’s Phrelyuquia. I assure you I won’t be under your feet.” Xi paused, eyes glimmering. “I have business with these criminals.”

-

Raleigh didn’t remember much. She knew she had fought something, and woken tied loosely in a chair. She’d fought viciously, and was now on the ground, tied more securely.

She wasn’t sure what was happening. But whatever it was, it wasn’t good.

Where was she? She tried desperately to think, but her brain refused to work properly, her thoughts fuzzy and indistinct. She could tell that she was confined with electric handcuffs, clipped to each other securely, the metal digging into her skin. Additionally, her mouth was tied.

She peered through her hair and finally managed to get a good look at the room she was in. Blank gray walls, not too old, and a few other people in here. They were tied to chairs or in the same position Raleigh was. She wondered why there seemed to be fewer than there were before… probably just her imagination.

So… what was going on here?

She closed her eyes and listened. Voices, nearby but too distant to understand. And further off, police sirens. Stationary, from the sound of them.

Raleigh wondered if she could get to her ring. She had an escape ring- a gift from her older brother- and she’d never used it, but thought maybe it would work on the handcuffs… if her captors hadn’t taken it.

They hadn’t. Her hands were swollen and numb, but she could move them. Now she had to get it off her finger without anyone seeing…

She had no idea if anyone else was in the room. Raleigh wanted to look around, but felt that it wouldn’t be a good idea if there was someone around.

For a while, she struggled with the ring, discerning eventually that there were a couple captors in the back of the room who weren’t really paying attention, but occasionally looked up and wandered over to poke at their hostages. If that’s what they were, and Raleigh could only assume so.

God, she was terrified.

She fumbled it and nearly dropped the ring when she got it off her finger, but managed to keep it in her hand. Her breath rasped in her throat. She could hear her own heartbeat in her ears, and knew that it was just her, but found it abnormally loud.

Now to get the lockpick out of the ring and try the handcuffs…

She never got the chance. Shouting broke out a few rooms away, and she heard rapid high-pitched gunfire. It was punctuated by several louder, lower shots, and the voices ceased.

That certainly got the attention of the two captors in the rear of the room.

“What was that?” one of them asked.

“I… don’t know,” the other responded. “A lot of gunfire. I think we have a problem.”

“Hey! Report in?” the first said, evidently into a radio of some kind. “…hello?”

“That’s bad.”

One of them stuck their head out the door. “Oh, shit!” he yelled, and pulled it back in, slamming the door after him. “Oh shit.”

“What?”

“There’s like- a military commando or something in there. Jesus!”

“A military commando?” The second one evidently did not believe this. Raleigh heard the door open, then promptly slam shut again. “Ohhh!”

“I told you.”

“What do we do?!”

“Ask the boss for help?” The first guy sounded really panicked now. “Hey, boss!... Boss?”

Silence.

“She’s not answering,” the first guy said. “Oh, no.”

“Okay. That commando can’t be here alone.”

“Well, it is.”

“Then it must care about one of our hostages.”

“I’m gonna look again.” The first guy peeked out the door again. Gunfire rang out, and the door slammed. “Shit, it almost took my head off.”

“What’s it look like?”

Silence. Then:

“That one.”

Footsteps. Someone hauled Raleigh up by the collar and turned her around so she could see the door. Then they pressed a gun to her throat. She tried not to swallow too hard and stopped messing with the ring. She did not want to provoke these guys into killing her. She really didn’t want to die.

Half a minute later, the door was struck by several shuddering blows. It flew open moments later, and something large and purple moved away so that someone could charge in-

It was Commander Charis, her high-powered pistol drawn in front of her, armored and angry. She stopped short when she saw Raleigh, frozen.

“Move towards us and we kill her,” the man holding Raleigh said.

Charis did nothing. Raleigh glanced behind her and saw, to her astonishment, Kthfthkthir’s shiny form. It was looking at her too.

Stalemate.

“If we keep this up, you’re just going to end up getting shot by the police,” Charis said evenly.

“We’re taking the captives with us, then,” snarled the guy. “Including this one. You want her, don’t you?”

Charis paused, then shrugged. “I’m doing this for the money,” she said evenly, tilting her gun nonchalantly. “I could care less, honestly.”

Raleigh sincerely hoped this wasn’t true. In fact, she knew it wasn’t. Charis was pretending to be some kind of mercenary, probably… through the commander’s helmet, Raleigh caught her eye. Charis’ expression was bland and uncaring. But she looked away from Raleigh quickly. An actor.

Behind her, Kthfthkthir did something.

Raleigh’s handcuffs suddenly sparked and stopped working. Her hands jerked apart, and the shock caused sparks to fly behind her, singing the man holding her. He yelped and let go, batting at where the sparks touched his pants.

She fell to the ground. Doctor Vivaki and Kthfthkthir got out of the way as the second man fired wildly. Charis dispatched the first one, moving towards him in order to ensure his demise.

The other one…

Raleigh was only aware of a swirl of purplish feathers, and then the vikyrelle was in the room, massive and angry, puffed up in fury. It lashed forwards, knocking the second man down, then pounced on his chest, using its fingers to dig into his throat.

“Oh,” he said.

Raleigh remembered that the vikyrelle had venomous fangs.

They snapped out like a rattlesnake’s, extending forwards as the vikyrelle hissed furiously and sank xir fangs into the thin flesh of the man’s throat. Raleigh winced.

Charis darted over to Raleigh, laying her gun on the ground and kneeling next to her. “Are you alright?” she asked, voice almost desperate. “I’m sorry about what I said. I didn’t mean it. You know that, right? Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” Raleigh told her. “I’m… good.” She was shaking.

Charis gently helped her sit up, one hand on her back. “We need to get you back to the ship.”

“Alright.” She had no energy to argue. “…alright.”

Doctor Vivaki peered around the doorway, Kthfthkthir behind her.

“You are alright,” Kthfthkthir said, and though its datapad voice couldn’t sound relieved, its body language was. “I was worried.”

Raleigh shook her head. She was having trouble speaking.

“Can you walk?” Charis took Raleigh’s hand. “We need to go before the police get here. I didn’t do anything legal back there.”

Raleigh didn’t know if she could walk. “I… probably.”

The vikyrelle, meanwhile, had stopped pumping venom into the dead man. Now xi was searching the captives, and though xi used xir delicate fingers to untie their bonds, xi didn’t seem happy.

“Phrelyuquia,” Charis called, and the vikyrelle looked over. “Did you find…?”

“No.” Phrelyuquia shook xir head, visibly upset. “They are not-“ Xi stopped, looking over at the far wall.

Raleigh knew what was over there. The forms of some of the dead captives, the ones deemed unnecessary.

Phrelyuquia stepped delicately over, viewed them, and promptly sat down with a high keening sound. Charis pursed her lips, pitying. After a few moments, the vikyrelle lowered xir head and closed xir eyes, unable- as many avian species were- to shed tears.

Finally xi raised xir head and, staring at nothing in particular, said: “I’m going to find who did this.”

“I agree,” Charis said unexpectedly. “Are you going anywhere after this?”

“No. My friend and I were stopping here before continuing out of Iridere.” Phrelyuquia stood slowly, balancing back on xir hind legs. “Are you actively hunting for… for whoever controlled these henchmen?”

“We weren’t,” Charis said slowly, “but I think we will be soon.”

“I want to come with you.” Phrelyuquia’s pupils were slits of anger in xir yellow eyes. “My friend did not deserve to be treated like this.”

Charis, who of course ultimately had the final say in everything, nodded. “Yes,” she said. “We’d be happy to welcome you aboard.”

“Thank you.” Phrelyuquia stood, only on xir hind legs, and nearly bumped xir head on the ceiling. “I will help you find them and punish them.”

There was no ready response for this. Charis helped Raleigh stand, which was harder than it seemed, because Raleigh had absolutely no strength in her body. Eventually it was decided that it was easier to carry her than to have her stumble on back.

“Out the back,” Phrelyuquia murmured. “It’s easier. The way we came in.”

The group fled through the back. The other hostages, those that remained alive, were left to find their own way out of the building.

The walk back to the Amelia was spent in relative silence, partially because everyone was thinking, and partially because they were trying to stay out of sight of most of the people in Kalyrio High Port. They did manage to make it back relatively unseen, and Charis practically kicked the Amelia’s door open and stormed in.

Raleigh was rather embarrassed to have to be carried in, especially carried in by the commander, but no one else could do it. Phrelyuquia’s fingers were too fragile to add Raleigh’s weight to- vikyrelle fingers were fragile by nature, especially when used for walking on flat ground, as they were designed for trees and cliffs, not smooth stone and metal surfaces. Doctor Vivaki could have, but for some reason Charis had been adamant about doing it herself. Besides, with her natural armor Doctor Vivaki served as a useful bodyguard, although she wasn’t happy about it.

“Jesus, Commander,” said Vari, who had been nervously waiting near the door. “What- uh-“

“If you want to talk you’ll have to follow us,” Charis told him, and made for the med bay. Doctor Vivaki opened it up and Charis deposited Raleigh on one of the beds, then sat down next to her. Everyone else crowded around the bed, although all of the larger species shut Kthfthkthir out, and it was forced to stand off to the side.

Whatever drug had been used to knock Raleigh out was giving her a horrific headache, and on top of that her wrists hurt and she was still unsure about her mental state. The residual fear from waking up tied up and having a gun pressed against her throat was not going away like it probably should have. Or maybe it shouldn’t have. Raleigh had absolutely no idea.

“What the hell happened?” Vari wondered, staring. “And, uh, who’s this?”

“My name is Phrelyuquia,” the vikyrelle said, bowing xir head as a greeting. “I’ve come aboard your ship to help down the-“ and here xi slipped into the native vikyrelle language, spitting out a series of venomous words that were no doubt stinging words regarding whoever had ordered the hostages to be taken.

“Whoa. O-kay,” Vari said, nodding once and scooting a bit away from the angry avian. “I, uh, alright. You’re frightening.”

The door opened, and someone poked their head in- Misalu. “Goodness,” he murmured, staring in at the crowd. “What happened?”

“Get out of here,” Charis snapped, not looking at him.

Phrelyuquia, instantly picking up on everyone’s hostility towards the fyaeiarnae, turned almost instantly and hissed, fluffing xir crest up and even showing xir fangs.

“’Bye,” Misalu said, and vanished. Phrelyuquia relaxed and turned back. Xi seemed to have sworn xirself to Charis, and was determined to defend her, even in non-serious situations.

“I like you,” Vari decided.

Phrelyuquia bowed xir head, accepting the compliment. “Thank you.”

“But you’re going to need a nickname. Because, um, Phre-“ he paused, pursing his lips. “Phrrrrrrelu, no, Phrelyuqua?”

“Close. But not really.” Phrelyuquia shook xir head. “I would love a nickname, if it would mean you aren’t going to butcher my real name.”

“Phrell.”

“Alright.” Phrell nodded.

Doctor Vivaki cleared her throat. Nobody noticed, except Raleigh, who didn’t really have the energy to interrupt anyone’s conversations.

“Hey! Excuse me!” Doctor Vivaki snapped her armor down on her hands and clapped them together, making most of the people near her wince or cover their ears. “This is a lovely conversation, and it is very nice that Phrelyuquia now has a nickname, but you all must leave.”

“Alright, I’m out,” Vari said, backing towards the door. “You’re the boss.”

Phrell looked towards Charis, who stubbornly stayed where she was. “Why?” She asked, and the tone of her voice was almost petulant.

“Because Raleigh must rest, and she cannot do that with all you in here. Go! Go!” She shooed them towards the door with her hands. Charis nearly argued, but glanced over at the exhausted and traumatized Raleigh and stood. “Fine,” she muttered. “But we’ll be back.”

Beside her, Phrell dipped xir head again and said, “I’m sure the commander didn’t mean for that to sound so menacing.”

“Should I leave as well?” inquired Kthfthkthir, who up to this point had been silent.

Doctor Vivaki almost allowed it, but Charis narrowed her eyes at the fyaeiarnae and she got the point. “I am afraid so. Once Raleigh has recovered you will be allowed to see her. Until then we are not letting anyone unfamiliar onto this ship! Commander, I hope you will enforce this.”

“Of course.” Charis’s tone was soft, but her eyes were hard. “Nobody gets on without express permission from me. We’re leaving this port as soon as possible, anyway.”

“Yeah, uh, Commander?” Vari poked his head back in. “Can’t really do that without Raleigh.”

“And why not?”

“She literally does everything. I just pull switches and steer. Raleigh handles all the kinetics and a lot of the camera movement, scanner data, and engine properties. I mean, I can do it all, but I won’t have time to make snarky comments. Or, y’know, think.”

“You’d best write them down to use later, then, because we are leaving as soon as possible.”

“Yeah, okay, but nobody else can do Raleigh’s job. And I really don’t like having to keep track of everything at once.” He seemed nervous. “Please, can we just wait a few days?”

The commander paused. “I don’t-“

“Out!” Doctor Vivaki pushed her towards the door. “Out, out. Have your argument elsewhere. Now is not the time!”

Kthfthkthir skittered out the door in front of Charis and Vari, who were still muttering at each other in low voices. Phrell followed them out, violet feathers vanishing last, nearly getting caught in the med bay door.

“Now, you, sleep,” Doctor Vivaki ordered. “I will lower the lights and go into my office to make sure nobody interrupts you and you have no problems from the drug.”

“Alright,” Raleigh sighed. She was cold and tired. “Um- it’s cold-“

“I will fetch a blanket for you. Sleep!”

Raleigh could not- and had no ambition to- disobey.


	17. Interlude - Lore: Native Ring Life

Technically speaking, none of the life on Iridere’s Rings is truly native- as the Rings are an artificial construction, life had to be brought there by various species at different points in the life of the Rings.

This means, however, that the life on the Rings varies greatly, incorporating ancient Earth creatures along with wildlife from a slew of different planets.

Perhaps the easiest way to elaborate on Iridere’s wildlife would to be to start from the center and head outwards.

  1. The Core

The Core, having almost no atmosphere and habitable land, has no native life. Or life of any kind really, except the hypothetical artificial intelligence that could be situated within the center of the shifting sphere.

  1. Ferolus

The desert Ring closest to the Core is, as with many deserts, surprisingly rich with life. As previously mentioned, Ferolus is mostly covered in three kinds of desert: Sand desert, scrub desert, and canyonland. This is in addition to the mountain range that lies cross-Ring from the massive lake that is Ferolus’ main source of water.  
Wildlife is abundant in all three types of desert on Ferolus.  
The sand desert is inhabited by sand spiders, sand vipers, sun hawks, and dune centipedes.

  1. Sand spiders are large, flat arachnids that burrow beneath the sand and lay on their backs to catch anything that walks over them and devour it. If one looks carefully enough, the patterns from their burrowing are recognizable, but it is very hard to see these, and the wind takes them away quickly.
  2. Sand vipers are abnormally large reptiles that also bury themselves in the sand, but usually leave their faces poking out. They are notably less aggressive than the spiders, as they are smaller and do not typically view humans as prey. Their scales are spiny and do not lie flat like those of snakes such as ball pythons and boas. Sand vipers, as their name suggests, possess a venom strong enough to potentially kill a human, though their intelligence actually means they sometimes cooperate to take down prey, and they will actually attack sand spiders for food. Sand vipers can grow up to twelve feet in length, but they don’t get much longer than that.
  3. Sun hawks are a variation on old Earth teratorns, but they’ve been altered slightly. Rather than being plainsland animals, these teratorns are adapted to the desert environment, and have become more like buzzards than the eagles they used to be. The species has changed enough that they could not interbreed with the Corrixi teratorns if one kind were introduced to the others’ Ring. Sun hawks are usually black, but they possess a patches of bright yellow or orange, and occasionally splashes of red on their tails or wing feathers. The skin on their neck and head is black rather than pink, to avoid being sunburnt. Sun hawks are capable of eating smaller sand vipers due to their size, but they can be killed by especially large sand spiders.
  4. Dune centipedes are perhaps the most horrifying creature found on Ferolus. They are the epitome of the reason not to walk in the desert without protection. They are extremely well camouflaged for sand in rippling shades of tan and beige, and they feel vibrations, much like sand spiders do. They will eat nearly anything and are large enough to devour things like elephants. They do not eat them whole, but tear them to shreds. If one makes a kill, others will flock to the site to feed also. Sometimes they will slaughter each other in their feeding frenzy, and they will kill (and, afterwards, eat) each other in territorial squabbles. They are extremely large, fast, and single-mindedly determined. The best advice is to stay away from them, although some of nomadic groups have methods used to keep the dune centipedes away- chemical repellants, forceful dissuasion, etc.
  5. There are smaller creatures- lizard analogues, birds, flies- but they are not extremely important, and mostly serve as food sources for the larger beasts.

The scrub desert is blessed by occasional rainstorms, and is inhabited by burrowing roundmouths, mud scuttlers, saltflat creepers, and packs of feral dust lizards.

  1. Burrowing roundmouths are portly little parasitic creatures, a bit like short hagfish with legs. Their mouths, as their name suggests, are round, and they attach themselves to other creatures- including humans- and cannot be detached from the skin without a great deal of force and pain. They do not do much physical damage, but can carry smaller parasites or diseases that they transmit into their hosts. Overall they are an annoyance and to be avoided.
  2. Mud scuttlers resemble four-legged crustaceans. They are dormant most of the time, but when the scrub desert is inundated with the flow from a surprise storm they appear from the ground-turned-mud and breed, hiding their eggs in caches deep below the ground. They remain active for up to three weeks after the rain passes, though they will eventually burrow back into the ground and go into torpor until the next rain.
  3. Ferolus was not always completely dry. The massive lake is all that is left of the widespread shallow oceans that used to be part of the ecosystem. The lakes dried after a lot of the water was desalinated and removed (much of it was exported to Kalyrio), leaving massive salt flats behind. The scrublands ring the salt flats, the salt in the middle too harsh to grow in. Reptiles and birds are capable of surviving on the salt flats, and there is a kind of lizardlike creature- the saltflat creeper- which takes advantage of the cracked flats. There are deep crevasses running through the flats, and the creepers dwell within these cracks, preying upon anything unfortunate enough to fall in. Some of the crevasses are large enough to swallow humans and horses and even elephants, and it is rumored that in the darkness there dwell creepers like dragons, growing massive in the shadows. Some of the salt cracks are roofed over by thin layers of crusted mineral, forming a false ground that traps the unwary who walk on it. The creepers are smart- some of them will take small branches and lay them across, so that when the rains come and the salt floors reform, they form thicker lattices that aren’t so obviously fake.  
A creeper’s lair is not restricted to one crack. Almost all of the salt cracks are connected- a creeper’s den can be located anywhere within them, and its territory ranges over miles and miles of corridors deep in the salt and dust.
  4. A common sight in the cities of Ferolus are dust lizards, which are massive and somewhat doglike in appearance. They have been bred to be beautifully colored and friendly. They do, however, have feral cousins that roam the scrub desert in packs. These are not to be tangled with, as they act much like wild dogs, and will attack humans. Usually a few gunshots are enough to scare them off, but there of course have been stories about giant evil dust lizard packs that devour humans and leave nothing but the bones. Dust lizards fill the role of wolves, and are often demonized, though their tame cousins are usually free of suspicion.

The Canyonlands of Ferolus are vast and carved by ancient rivers that have long since dried up. Many of the canyons are on the shadowside of Ferolus, since the heat of the Core can’t reach the water there and there are more regular rainstorms along with pools and springs in the rocks. The canyons are lit by Rigel and light emissions from the other Rings. Common sights in the canyons- or rare sights, depending on the creature- are rock eagles, mesa runners, canyon centipedes, noontide ants, canyon lions, and vikyrelle.

  1. Rock eagles are fairly similar to their sun hawk teratorns cousins, but have evolved to be highly predatory creatures, not scavengers. They prey upon many of the smaller canyon-dwelling creatures, although they will typically not mess with any sentient species. They are usually colored in blacks, grays, and tans with occasional accents of red.
  2. Mesa runners are restricted mostly to the plateaus of the canyons, simply because they cannot climb very well or at all. They are very like antelope but lack the jumping and climbing prowess of goats, and instead are long and thin and extremely good at running. They can be ridden, but are very fragile, and usually once someone grows out of their teenage years they are too heavy to be carried by a mesa runner. Children ride them, and extremely small couriers. Otherwise, they are hunted for meat.
  3. Canyon centipedes bear some resemblance to dune centipedes, but they dwell in existing burrows in the rock, not in sand. They are smaller and less territorial, but equally as deadly if provoked, and equally as hungry all the time. Generally they are also colored in brilliant stripes of red, orange, brown, and dun, as these colors are more prevalent in the stratified canyon walls.
  4. There are colonies of very large ants in the canyons, where they are partially shielded from the sun. Despite the apparent lack of vegetation, Ferolus’ atmosphere is sufficiently oxygen-rich to allow for ants up to a foot long to live comfortably. They will gather up large boulders and use those to construct a hive in the base of dried riverbed, and any who disturb them will have to deal with the ant warriors. The queens are sometimes nearly as large as people and extremely grotesque.
  5. Canyon lions are in fact cats, although very strange ones, with almost no fur but a close fuzz on their bodies. They are extremely good at keeping cool and also keeping unseen. They are rarely seen and do not attack sentient species.
  6. Vikyrelle did not evolve on Ferolus, but the species of vikyrelle that evolved in canyons find the environ on Ferolus to be highly agreeable. The oxygenated atmosphere is similar to the one on their homeworld, and the canyons aren’t really inhabitable by most other sentient colonizing species. So there are numerous vikyrelle colonies in the canyons.

In addition to all of these desert-dwelling hazards, Ferolus’ main water source is home to a collection of extremely large and terrifying armored fish species, all of which will not hesitate to eat nearly anything. Attempting to catch them will result either in success, failure, or maiming.

  1. Wenyrev

Wenyrev’s wildlife is incredibly diverse, given that it is a mixture of swamp and jungle, and there are thousands of species that exist there only. There are far too many to list, but I will try to define some of the larger groups or more noticeable creatures here. First would be the equatorial jungle creatures. The jungles of Wenyrev are home to a number of species of venomous reptiles, avian analogues, and undergrowth beasts.

  1. Whereas many jungles on earth are home to venomous snakes, Wenyrev differs in that it has no snakes, only reptilian creatures similar to lizards that have a venomous bite and an incredibly capability for climbing things. Often these small species will be brightly colored to warn off predators, and many non-venomous species will mimic the coloration of the more deadly ones in order to also avoid being consumed.
  2. There are also no birds on Wenyrev. The niche of avians is taken up by large insects of different varieties, some of the most notable the large wasp-like predators that will hunt down and eat something as large as a small dog, given that they are nearly a foot and a half long at their best. The adults rip their prey to shreds and will feed pieces of it to their young, which live in holes all over the jungle. These predator insects have a photographic memory and remember where their young are based on the surrounding areas- much like wasps native to Earth, they will be confused and unable to find the hole if anything around it is moved. This is a bit troublesome when harsh rainstorms move the landmarks around the holes, but these insects are smarter than Earth’s wasps, and can determine where the hole was if the items around it were moved slightly. These predatory insects have a paralytic venom in their sting that makes it easier for them to take down their prey. This also means that the creature is alive, if unable to move, when the wasp rips it apart. Like some tropical birds, the wasps are smart enough- and live long enough (several years)- that they can actually be trained to obey commands, up to attacking people or flying to certain places with tiny cameras strapped to their bodies and then returning.
  3. There are mammals in Wenyrev’s jungles, but they are not common. Many of Wenyrev’s undergrowth beasts are exoskeletal, like enormous millipedes, or enormous centipedes, or enormous millipedes that are predatory and look like logs, or large terrestrial isopods that will fall for the log trick and be devoured.

On either side of Wenyrev’s jungle belt lie zones of mangrove swamp, perforated with the islands and sandbars and sometimes divided into massive silty rivers. It is tropical and gorgeous, although occasionally the swamps can be racked by powerful thunderstorms.

  1. Following along with the theme of exoskeletal life forms, one of the most common creatures seen in Wenyrev’s mangrove swamps is an aquatic isopodal creature, with a rounded blue-gray shell that can curl into a sphere. They can be found either resting on mangrove roots or swimming about in the waters, and are food for a lot of the other creatures there.
  2. There are several species of diving wasps, related to the jungle wasps, that prey upon the isopods and segmented swimming creatures.
  3. Rather slow teardrop-shaped segmented swimmers inhabit the waters of the mangrove swamps. As they are extremely easy to catch, it is a miracle the species has survived at all with the intense predation. They are, however, still numerous. Perhaps their sheer numbers ensure their survival.
  4. Another segmented water species- Omifors- consists of an armor-plated creature with ten legs, five on each side, with a kind of webbing strung between the limbs. Its entire form is very sinuous and is completely protected by carapace pieces. The number of eyes on an omifor varies- it can have anywhere from twelve to twenty compound eyes, sitting at random intervals on the top of its head. Its mouth is located on the end of a mobile proboscis. It preys upon the swimmers, but a lot of things eat it as well.
  5. Some of the life-forms have no skeleton at all. For example, silt worms, which resemble flatworms or leeches but are much larger and capable of devouring something as large as a pig. They are highly venomous and can function perfectly in wet environments, as they breathe through their skin. A silt worm will lie partially buried in the mud and wait for something to walk by before striking, enveloping the prey in its slimy body, and digesting it slowly after suffocating it.
  6. There are mammals in the swamps, although, again, they are not common. Their ecological niches have been filled by things with no bones. They still manage to eke out a living, though. There are septapi- imaginatively enough, they are seven-limbed creatures resembling octopi but with a much more prominent bone structure i.e. they actually have a skeleton, and are covered in short fur, much like sea lions or seals. They move through the mangrove roots with their arms, and if they fall into the water, they can drag themselves across the bottom until they encounter something they can climb. They cannot swim very well, but they almost never fall.

Finally, Wenyrev’s outer biome, and the one that covers the shadowside of the Ring: The ocean. The ocean is shallow, for the most part, but in some places trenches delve down almost to the metallic core of Wenyrev. Here, too, cephalopods, isopods, and exoskeletal creatures have taken over.

  1. Firstly: The main source of food for the herbivorous creatures of the shallow seas are mats of floating algae that bask in the heat and light of the Core, growing to unimaginable sizes while things nibble on the edges. They can be torn to shreds by storms, which then causes each piece to either die, be consumed, or grow into its own algae mat.
  2. Skimmers are flat, many-winged insect creatures that live entirely at sea. They nest on the algae mats, taking advantage of the ever-moving platform to raise their eggs in slightly more safety than if they were in one spot on land. Skimmers are flat, perhaps half a meter to a meter long, have the classic Wenyrev design of four wings and four legs, although their wings are massive, thick, and waterproof, meaning that they can fly low over the ocean without their wings becoming waterlogged. They prey upon many species of tiny herbivores that feed on the algae mats, even as they eat some of the algae themselves.
  3. Nibblers and gnawers are two kinds of small segmented swimmers, both herbivorous. They feed on the algae mats and nibble at the edges (hence the names) although gnawers will do a lot more damage than nibblers. Skimmers, which are omnivorous, will feed on these.
  4. One of the most impressive creatures roaming Wenyrev’s oceans is a sort of giant floating jellyfish-like beast, made up of different cells that can join or split whenever they choose. The living raft- which is usually referred to as a phantom glider- is actually more similar to a collection of salps than jellyfish, but it is far more intelligent. The more cells join, the smarter the glider gets, until it is large enough that it has to split apart or it is torn apart simply by the ocean swell or by some of the many storms that rack the oceans. Each cell is capable of gathering other cells and growing into a new glider. There have been many discussions on whether or not gliders can become sentient if they have enough cells; no definitive conclusion has been reached. The cells are very nutritious if a creature chooses to eat them- but one must be careful. Some cells possess potent poison due to a kind of algae that grows on their skins. Some of them do not. If a creature consumes the algae, it can kill them.
  5. One of the things that will prey on a phantom glider without fear is a species of gigantic cephalopod, nine-limbed beasts with incredible camouflage abilities and a resistance to glider algae poison. The species has garnered the name “Mirrorskin” because of its incredible powers. It has the ability to perfectly camouflage itself in any situation- it can mimic stripes, rainbows, patterns, unique images, anything. It can mimic moving patterns such as the play of light in the water, or the glitter of a swarm of swimmers deep beneath the surface.
  6. A species of larger swimming predator that preys on nibblers, gnawers, and swimmers is the ray darter, which sounds like a sort of small, sweet fish until one is informed that they fill the same roles as sharks do on Earth. That makes them larger, but just as friendly. Mirrorskins will prey on these, as they can be tricked into believing that a mirrorskin _is_ a swarm of swimmers.
  1. Corrix

Corrix is incredible. It was seeded with ancient Earth wildlife, species resurrected or rebuilt from the remains humans could find on their half-wasted planet. The wildlife there is a mixture of creatures ranging from those that lived in the Paleocene to those that lived in the Pleistocene. A good deal of the Ring is covered in plainslands, mountains, forests, and tundra. All of these will be addressed at once. Additionally, nearly all of the creatures on Corrix are much more intelligent than the original breeds, as they were enhanced as an experiment to see if they would be of more use if they were granted extra intelligence. They are somewhat more useful, but that experiment was abandoned in favor of the formation-of-civilization one.

  1. Mammoths and mastodons are both common sights in the plains and tundras of Corrix. They are often captured, tamed, and used for many purposes, usually carrying people or pulling things that weight too much for horses to take.
  2. Horses were brought to Corrix and have never left. Even wild herds seem perfectly content living in relative harmony with the ancient wildlife, despite that when the NALMA (North American Land Mammal Ages) creatures lived, horses hadn’t quite evolved to their current state and were still much smaller than they are now.
  3. Saber cats are a fixture of grasslands and scrublands. They hunt in small groups and are slightly larger than the original kind was, but they hunt with the same slash-and-dash method, using their serrated fangs to slice an animal and then following it from a distance while it runs out of blood and dies. These cats are large enough to be ridden.
  4. The American Lion went extinct and was brought back, and now lives happily in the highlands of Corrix. These are definitely large enough and intelligent enough to be trained and ridden, and in fact will develop quite a liking for anyone who treats them kindly. They can be devoted to their riders completely, even if they weren’t raised by those same riders. They are fearsome mounts, incredibly strong, fast, and smart. It does take a certain amount of presence to control one, so not just anybody can ride one. It requires a lot of willpower and sense. The revolutionary king of Edrelle, Micah Cyraxis, tamed a lion named Mjoll and rode her into the battle where he destroyed the previous regime.
  5. Direwolves are, like all canine species as compared to feline species, easier to train and control than lions. Still, they are not commonly used as mounts, as they are predatory and tend to be a lot more trouble than horses or antelopes. Also, they have to have packs or groups to be in. If they are separated from their group, they become irritable or despondent. But they are extremely fast and powerful, and will fight to the death to defend their riders and the others that they care about, much like humans. The five revolutionary Ringleaders rode a small pack of direwolves, the order of command passing down from whoever rode the alpha to whoever rode the lowest member of the pack.
  6. There are many species of antelopes and pronghorns that roam the plainslands of Corrix. These long-limbed ungulates are easily trained, though they will flee from battle rather than try to fight for their riders. They are very fast, and are good for highly skilled archers, who can shoot from a riding position and vanish into the rolling hills or forests like wraiths. Micah Cyraxis used antelope and pronghorn teams as guerilla raiders in his campaign against the king he killed.
  7. Short-faced bears are a forest and mountain species. They are differently shaped from modern Earth bears, although they look similarly, and are large enough to be ridden. They typically do not care much for humans, although they will not attack their handlers without provocation. They are usually the most cautiously handled creatures, saber cats being next in line. Micah’s army used short-faced bears as front-line chargers, given that they were fast but could also be heavily armored, and were good as a vanguard.
  8. The term ‘teratorn’ is a blanket term for the family of massive buzzards of which the condor is part. It also happens to be the smallest, with its wingspan topping out at around nine feet. From there, its relatives only get larger, wingspans increasing from eleven feet to fourteen to eighteen to twenty to twenty-six. Additionally, the ones on Corrix have grown to even be a bit larger, which is very possible due to the low gravity of Corrix. The largest recorded teratorn on Corrix had a wingspan of thirty-two feet. These birds are large enough to carry small children on their backs, and they can be trained due to their extra intelligence courtesy of the fyaeiarnae and human scientists that resurrected them and put them on the third Ring. They are often used as scouts in battles, or couriers over dangerous or intraversable lands where runners can’t be used.
  9. A phorusrhacid is a scientific designation for a creature that otherwise is only known as a terror bird. They are enormous ground birds, with small wings, but long and powerful legs. Their beaks are sharp and strong, and they will take down and eat deer and antelope, or small horses. The ones on Corrix again outsize those on old Earth, and can easily carry humans. They are often used as couriers as they can run for long distances and do not tire easily. Additionally, they can be armored and used as a kind of lancer or jouster.
  1. Kalyrio

Any wildlife Kalyrio had was completely eliminated when the entire Ring became industrialized. The closest thing to wildlife that exists in the streets and buildings of Kalyrio are the few urban species that can exist on the scraps that other species leave them.

  1. Sewer crawlers. The name itself suggests some kind of disgusting, multi-limbed creature that lurks in the sewers, and that is one hundred percent correct. Sewer crawlers are reptilian in nature, only adding to the negative image they project, and have eight limbs, four on each side, and a tail. Their eyes are very close to being compound. They survive on things that fall down the drains, and are affected by anything that does. There are many interesting mutations of sewer crawlers caused by influxes of chemicals or substances from different parts of Kalyrio, even to the point where new species of crawlers are evolving.
  2. Skitterjacks are a bit like sewer crawlers, but two of their pairs of legs have been replaced by insect-like wings that vibrate at a high rate and allow them to sort of fly. Otherwise, they look very similar to the sewer crawlers in terms of their eyes and overall body structure. Both of them spring from the same ancestors.
  3. Not only do the sewer crawlers and skitterjacks feed on leftovers from the higher species, they also prey on a kind of tiny creature called a quorli. There are thousands of them in any given city block- they’re like mice. Their bodies are portly and very round in the middle, and their legs are very thin. Their ears are enormous, and instead of a ‘proper’ mouth they possess a long snout with an incredibly long tongue within it. Somehow they proliferate incredibly quickly.
  1. Averan

Averan is the complete opposite of Kalyrio. The entire Ring is covered in forests and jungles; there isn’t an inch of Averan’s surface that isn’t green. The plants there are sentient, and are far more important than the animals- the nyphelim care for the plants and the plant-minds. Most of the creatures on Averan are small tree-dwelling things with many arms, adapted to their arboreal environment, and a lot of them serve as food for the nyphelim andother, larger, creatures.

  1. Harbour

Harbour’s oceans- which cover most of its surface- are filled to the brim with different kinds of life. Many of its large predators and more impressive species are things brought, again, from Earth. They are denizens of the Cretaceous deeps such as mosasaurs(massive carnivorous aquatic lizards), megalodons (gigantic sharks), kronosaurs(short-necked pliosaurs), archelons (massive omnivorous sea turtles), crocodiles, and more.

  1. Xovan

Xovan, the furthest Ring from the core, is always cold and snowy. And dangerous. The constant blizzards mean that the wildlife has to be highly adapted to their environment or they will not survive. And the wildlife has adapted- in terrifying ways.

The environments on Xovan- tundra, mountains, frozen-over oceans- all have their own hosts of creatures, most of which are capable of killing a human being. Fortunately they don’t often mess with people, given that the people live in settlements, but a lone courier is an ideal target. Some of the tundra-dwelling species include:

  1. Saber-toothed bears. Yes, saber-toothed bears. If it sounds like a nightmare, that’s because it is. The bears are massive and hungry, and it’s best to just keep as far away from them as possible. They aren’t limited to the plains; they can be found in the mountains as well.
  2. Tundra runners are actually similar to Ferolus’ mesa runners in more than one way. They are also shaped rather like antelopes, but a lot shaggier and more compact. Still they lack the ability to jump and climb, given that their environment is a flat snow plain, but they are perfectly comfortable there, and very good at finding grass and other food buried beneath the snow. They differ in one important way, though- because of the lack of vegetation to eat, they have also taken to eating parts of decaying corpses. If one tundra runner dies, it’s likely that the others will eat it.

The plains are fairly devoid of most life, aside from the above species and a few more simple species of burrowing prey mammal and the like. The mountains have a bit more diversity in them:

  1. Shadow leopards are sometimes used as a tale to scare children, and it works. People are terrified of shadow leopards- the silent white-and-gray cats the size of mountain lions that stalk through the mountains and hide in snowfalls and behind avalanches. However, the shadow leopard is highly sensitive towards human activity and, as a result, tries to stay as far away from it as possible. Their pelts are highly prized and can be used to make unique snow-suits or clothing. Because of this, the shadow leopard population is perhaps more affected by human hunting than it should be.
  2. Rock wyrms- it sounds like a kind of dragon. That’s because it basically is a kind of dragon. It’s a four-legged mammalian beast with its fur compressed into hard plates or scales, and it is very good at living in the cold Xovan mountains. They have no wings, but they do not need them, as they are very fast and strong. They are around the same size as shadow leopards, perhaps a bit smaller, but that doesn’t stop them from taking down prey larger than them in packs. They do hunt in packs- rock wyrms live in little colonies in the mountains, hunting together and sharing their kills. People are oddly less scared of the dragon analogues than they are of the leopards, but that’s perhaps because the rock wyrms actually possess a social structure while the leopards are solitary.
  3. Snow jumpers are related to rabbits, but larger. A lot larger. And they have hooves where they once had feet with claws. They are very good at climbing and are often taken as prey by the shadow leopards and rock wyrms.
  4. Another common prey animal would be the snow gliders, another mammal. They’re related to, amusingly enough, something from a different planet that’s very similar to a flying squirrel.

And, finally, the most terrifying environment on Xovan: its iced-over oceans.

  1. Fanged battering whales are a species of cetacean that evolved purely for Xovan’s ice-covered depths. They break massive holes in the ice when they need to breath, bashing through the thick coating with their blunt noses, and will do the same thing if something they want to eat is atop the ice. They can drive up from below and burst through the ice, sending their food flying, and capture it when they come down. They are very good at this. Their large mouths are filled with sharp teeth, and their front teeth protrude down past their lips a bit, forming the fangs that give them part of their name.
  2. The whales are not the largest predator in the seas. Massive, solitary ice wyrms, related to rock wyrms, patrol the frigid depths and will kill and consume the whales if they can. They are very capable of this, given that they can grow to twice the size of the whale. Humans needn’t fear the ice wyrms purely because a predator so big doesn’t care to eat something as small as a human.
  3. Wyrmlings are the smaller cousins of the ice and rock wyrms, and they have a sort of symbiotic relationship with the whales, if ‘both feeding off the other detrimentally but also positively’ is a type of symbiosis. The whales eat the wyrmlings, the wyrmlings flee from the whales. However, the wyrmlings also need the holes the whales break in the ice in order to survive, because they are too small to break their own holes and they need to breath more often than the wyrms and whales do.
  4. Xovan’s oceans are full of Earth fish. Everything from sixgill sharks to swordfish, from anglers to angelfish, and a whole lot of new species that evolved only for Xovan. The larger creatures feed off these fish.

There are, of course, more species than the ones listed. These are just the species of note. There are far too many species of Iridere animals to explain each and every one. Suffice to say that the life on the Rings is far more complex than anyone could possibly understand without many, _many_ years of study.


	18. Shadowside: Harbour

“Director-“

“I don’t want to hear it.”

Morpho was furious. One of the subgroups under her command had made a complete mess of their job in the port, and she had absolutely no patience for sloppy mistakes like that, especially traceable ones that could be linked back to her.

And this one could certainly be.

To make matters worse, her operative was beginning to raise suspicions. It wasn’t that Cendrick wasn’t good at playing his role- because he was-… it was that he moved too quickly and drew attention where he didn’t need to.

But that ridiculous situation on Kalyrio was beyond stupid.

Morpho wanted to find the group that was responsible for that monstrosity and permanently get rid of all of them. If they weren’t going to follow her orders once, they weren’t going to be alive long enough to do it again.

The subgroup was headed by, interestingly enough, a spaceborn fyaeiarnae named Kaliel. Kaliel had been a pirate before joining Shadowside under a smaller branch of the group, but it appeared that she was not completely devoted to Shadowside’s cause.

Another underling approached, bowing before trying to speak. “Madam Director.”

“Speak.”

“We’ve received some information concerning that ship.”

Morpho’s attention zeroed in on the underling. “Go on.”

“The _Amelia_ docked in Kalyrio High Port some time before the… er, problematic situation there. One of their crewmates was caught up in it. The commander of the ship slaughtered the guards to rescue her, and they picked up a vikyrelle spacer while they were at it. They’re trying to track down who’s responsible.”

This required more thought.

The _Amelia_ was a cargo freighter. A frigate. Not a very fast one, with minimal weapons and a mediocre camouflage capability. The only thing really remarkable about her was her advanced kinetic shield.

And, apparently, her captain and crew.

Commander of the ship, hmm? Commander Elmina Charis, of the Traders’ Fleet Security force. She wasn’t actually a military commander.

And apparently she was devoted to her crew, risking what seemed like a politically dubious situation to get one of her crewmates back. And where did she get the vikyrelle? Didn’t they normally stay out of violent human affairs? And on Kalyrio, too. The vikyrelle usually confined themselves to Ferolus or Averan, not venturing onto the highly developed Fourth Ring.

This was altogether strange.

Morpho wasn’t sure about the classification of the vikyrelle as a ‘diplomat,’ given that vikyrelle diplomats were highly trained and given years of schooling, which most vikyrelle didn’t want to subject themselves to.

The vikyrelle was probably a xiale, and the Morpho’s underlings had assumed instantly that xi was a diplomat because of that. Morpho sighed. Just because a vikyrelle happened to be a xiale didn’t mean xi was a diplomat, wanted to be a diplomat, or indeed would be good for the job at all.

But this entire situation could relieve Morpho of some responsibility. If the commander and the small crew of her oddly free-roaming frigate wanted to track down the ridiculous sector of Shadowside operatives who had made such a debacle out of what was supposed to be a simple kidnapping, Morpho wasn’t going to stop them. It would save her the trouble of killing them herself.

Although she might want to do it simply for appearances’ sake. But then again, she could let the commander do it and still appear in control of the situation.

But if she did it, she would have to make sure there was no information that could link the blame to Morpho herself. If the commander succeeded in her mission Morpho certainly didn’t want her coming after her next, although she could defend herself. She’d hate to shoot her down. As much as the Commander bothered her, with her little Ring-running stunts and disruptive practices, she was fond of watching the ship’s progress. It interested her.

Yes, she’d let the commander be. Just as long as she didn’t shove her ship’s nose in their plans again.

But it was fine. Cendrick would let her know if they did anything untoward that she didn’t want to occur.

“Do nothing,” Morpho ordered, waiting a few seconds for the echo of her underling’s voice to stop ringing in the silence. If she spoke too quickly, they would think she hadn’t given any thought to her answer. She had. She just thought faster than everyone else.

“Nothing, Director?”

“Nothing. Send word that no one is to hamper the commander’s investigation in any way. She is now tasked with hunting down the idiots behind the Kalyrio mistake, and she can do whatever she chooses with them. Hopefully she will make an example of them.” She paused. “Anyone in Shadowside who tries to stop her will answer to me, unless she is directly interfering with our other plans. Is that clear?”

“Yes, Madam Director.”

“Good.” Morpho thought for a second again. “Otherwise, continue with our original plan of action, keep planning, et cetera. We move within a few months.”

“Yes, Madam Director.”

“Leave.”

The underling bowed and fled. Morpho resumed staring out the glass wall at Rigel, watching the brilliant blue-white stars shed ripples of light and radiation.

She was hoping to be left alone. This, obviously, was too much to hope for.

“Director?”

Morpho sighed. “What is it?”

“We’ve established our launching point on Harbour.”

“Good.”

“…umm- that’s, that’s not all…”

Morpho remained silent, waiting for the underling to speak.

“It’s underwater.”

“Is this a problem?”

“Well, it wasn’t… but they’ve listed archelons and deep-sea kronosaurs as endangered species, so we can’t interfere with their habitat. Also we can’t hurt them if they attack us for being in their territory.”

This was troublesome, but it wasn’t a massive problem, and Morpho didn’t want to deal with it. If her underlings couldn’t sort it out, they could bring it up to her again. “Figure this out within yourselves,” she sighed. “If it really turns out to be such a huge issue, I’ll think about it. But right now I have more pressing matters to attend to.”

The underling bowed and left.

And a fourth entered. Was there no end to this parade of idiocy?

“What do you want?” Morpho asked, voice perhaps a little sharper than it should have been.

“Nothing important, ma’am,” said the underling, raising Morpho’s alarms.

She stood from his chair and ducked underneath the sweep of a knife that would have swept through her neck, had she not moved. Smoothly she took a few steps back and waited, trying to see what this assassin would do.

The assassin hung back, wary after Morpho’s quick reaction. They held a long knife in one hand, a fighting knife, and in the other there glittered the point of a throwing knife. Morpho kept her attention focused on the assassin’s face, but made sure to note if they moved that arm back.

They stood for a moment, regarding each other.

Morpho reached up to activate her comms. The assassin’s arm flew up, and Morpho dropped her arm and hurled herself sideways. The throwing knife clinked off the glass where she had been standing and fell to the ground.

And before she’d even really stood up all the way, the assassin had flitted to the window, recovered their knife, and backed away again. Morpho brushed herself off and watched calmly as the assassin pulled a small device from their coat pocket and did something to it.

It looked like a tiny tripod. The assassin dropped it on the ground, where it sat, blinking innocently. Morpho went for her comms again, and this time the assassin did nothing.

The comms were down. The device was a jammer.

“Good thinking,” Morpho praised, somewhat pleased. “Unfortunately, they’ll investigate why the comms are down. So you may have not wanted to do that. I appreciate the gesture, though. Not many assassins think far enough ahead to bring a jammer, and my guards get most of them.”

The way this particular assassin moved was fluid and graceful, like a dancer. It was clear they’d been trained for a very long time in this profession. They stood silently where they were, seemingly at ease, face nearly unreadable.

Morpho watched them carefully. It was a nyphelim, as evident by the somewhat noticeable but immobile armor plating on their face and body, or at least what of it was showing.

They twitched. Morpho ducked to the side again, but was startled as she moved to watch the throwing knife glitter next to her and vanish out of her field of view. At the same time, she felt a sharp line of pain etch itself across her cheek, and she jerked back, surprised. The assassin had actually hit her.

Where were they now? Morpho looked up and didn’t see the assassin where they had been standing. She spun, actually somewhat worried, and searched-

A flash of movement to her left and she turned in time to see the assassin try to land a hit on her neck with their bare hand. She brought his arm up to block it and took the hit, which was strong enough- and delivered with an armored edge- to send shockwaves through her arm and temporarily numb her hand. She wondered if the knife had been poisoned, and if so, how long she had to live if she didn’t find the antidote. If it wasn’t one of the poisons she was already immune to.

There followed a flurry of activity, as the assassin beat forwards with their hands and the fighting knife and Morpho defended herself, admiring her attacker more and more. They were talented, and perhaps could be repurposed if they were offered a new job opportunity.

But enough was enough. Morpho decided this game had gone on too long and caught the assassin under the ribs, in a small spot where she knew nyphelim had no armor. The assassin staggered back, surprised. Morpho sent the fighting knife spinning across the room and took them down easily, unnaturally easily. That was probably a result of her enhancements.

The assassin had evidently not been told that Morpho’s body was enhanced- all of it, muscle, skin, and bone. Her bones didn’t break, her skin didn’t bruise, her muscles didn’t really tire- and these hits weren’t doing much against her.

She made sure not to permanently damage the assassin, staying away from important joints but taking advantage of the soft spot near the collarbone. And, once the assassin was down for long enough, Morpho pulled out the small pistol coded to her DNA to only work for her and trained it on the assassin.

“You did a remarkable job there,” Morpho complimented the assassin.

They looked up, and stared down the barrel of Morpho’s gun. Morpho was actually breathing hard- she was very impressed with this attempt. The assassin said nothing.

“Who sent you?”

Nothing.

Morpho sighed. “Come on,” she told the assassin. “Be reasonable. I could just kill you. Or I could employ you. Which would be preferable? I assure you, if you’re worried about your previous client coming after you, we are amply prepared to dispose of them.”

The assassin narrowed their eyes, which Morpho noted were not the typical shade of nyphelim green or blue but instead a dark brownish-hazel.

“Take your time. I have all day, or at least I have until the guards arrive. It shouldn’t be much longer.” Morpho checked his watch. “I’d give them another thirty seconds.”

The assassin wavered, and finally said, “I was sent by Kaliel.”

“Really.”

“She knows she screwed up. She knows you’re going to hunt her down, so she ambitiously sent me to kill you.” The nyphelim shrugged. “It didn’t work, but I don’t know what she expected. She’s nowhere near powerful enough to hire someone who could actually kill you.” Their voice was smoother than it had sounded before, but still had a ragged undertone that scraped at the bottom of their vocal range. A feminine voice, though low and harsh.

“You’re quite good, to be honest,” Morpho said. “I don’t know if she wasted her money after all. But it’s good to know it’s already someone I planned on killing. Did she already pay you?”

“Partially.”

“Good for her. I’ll double the rest of what you were going to get.”

The assassin considered this. “And the alternative is?”

“You die.”

They shrugged. “That seems fair.”

“Excellent.” Morpho did not move her gun. “Do we have a deal?”

“We do.”

Morpho stepped back, pulling the gun away from the assassin. “Wonderful. Do stand up and tell me your name. You may also want to recover your knives, miss…?”

The assassin went and scooped up their fighting knife, sliding it easily back into the sheath that hung down on their right side. “My name is Dewbud,” they said after a moment, going still. They seemed to be waiting.

Dewbud, in any list of nyphelim names, was traditionally masculine. Morpho dipped her head. “My apologies.”

“No offense taken,” Dewbud said, searching over by the window for his knife. “I’m… where could that have gone? Ah, there it is. I was in the employ of Kaleil, and she will be displeased to see me go.”

Morpho nodded, unsure of why Dewbud was mentioning this.

“To be honest,” the nyphelim continued, “I could have actually killed you. There were plenty of opportunities before. But I didn’t, because you are far more powerful than Kaleil will ever be and I thought it prudent to offer my services to you. So I chose a method of attacking you where you would be at an advantage. I was not informed about your… biological alterations?”

“Correct.” Morpho dipped her head. “Not many know about them. Kaleil certainly didn’t. You say you could have killed me. Are you sure?”

“Reasonably.”

“Hmm.” Morpho thought about this. Someone who knew how to kill her would be best off dead. But it would also be good to have that person under Morpho’s control. They could cover all of the breaks in security that Morpho hadn’t found, the breaks they knew how to exploit. “Interesting.”

“I thought, perhaps, that I could be of use.”

“You can.” Morpho carefully watched Dewbud’s expression. “You would pose no threat dead, of course.”

Dewbud’s expression did not change. He simply stood next to the window, hands behind his back, watching.

“But you will be useful. You will know how to defend against these opportunities and breaks in security. Therefore, I will not order you killed.”

“I appreciate that.”

“I will also have some tasks for you.” Having a pet hit man would be nice. Morpho didn’t trust mercenaries.

“Understandable.”

“Good.” Morpho strode over to the jammer and looked down at it. “Is this yours?”

“No.”

Morpho nodded wordlessly, then kicked the jammer over and stepped on a seam in the casing to crack it open. It came apart, and she crushed some of the delicate electronics beneath her heel. They sparked and her comms instantly started working again.

“-…peat, we’ve lost all contact with the room. The guards can’t get the outer solar door open. Madam Director, are you there?”

“We’re fine,” Morpho sighed into her comms. “But you’re late.”

“I’m sorry, Director,” started the man on the other end, mortified. “We-“

“Don’t. You are excused.” She paused. “This time.”

“Thank you, Director. Thank you-“

“Be quiet. Stop hammering on the outer door, you’ll break it. It’s probably barricaded somehow.” Morpho glanced over at Dewbud.

“My apologies,” the nyphelim said, dipping his head.

Morpho shut off the comms. “Have one of my underlings find you somewhere to stay,” she ordered. “I’ll speak with you again soon.”

Dewbud bowed and headed for the door.

“Oh, and, one more thing.”

“Yes?”

“Was your throwing knife poisoned?”

“No. They were not suitable for this situation.” Dewbud paused. “There is no chance of there being any kind of residue on the blade either.”

“Good. So there’s no need for any kind of antidote?”

“No.”

“You may go.”

Dewbud left the room. Morpho waited until he was gone, then straightened her jacket and reached up. A neat little cut had been sliced across her cheekbone, a thin line of bright red that dripped down onto her collar. She’d need to change his shirt. This did not please her, but she understood why Dewbud had needed to make an impression. Any assassin less capable Morpho would have simply killed.

But perhaps Dewbud would be different. Morpho could use someone underneath her who knew what they were doing, and this nyphelim certainly seemed to have some idea.

Perhaps now she could finally get something done.


	19. Snowblind: Three Canyon Run

Arkane’s shoulder smarted somewhat. They had been shot, but it hadn’t penetrated through Arkane’s heavy clothing and basic shields. The only reminder of the shot was a large bruise that covered most of Arkane’s shoulder.

“How are you doing?” Orca yelled back to them.

“I’m fine,” Arkane assured her. “Keep going. The next safehouse is just ahead.”

They’d taken to leaving the eggs outside the safehouses in order to prevent them from hatching. Arkane was worried something would come across the eggs and eat them, but so far they’d been fine.

They were now entering a canyon system. This part of the journey, which was commonly used as a roadway between Ceos and a more northern roadway, was called Three Canyon Run.

This was because a stormrunner had to navigate through three canyons, one after the other. And it didn’t matter which direction they started from, the canyons were complex enough that it didn’t matter. Many a runner had been lost in Three Canyon Run.

Arkane had gone through it once, when they’d first arrived at Ceos. It hadn’t been much fun, and they’d almost gotten fatally lost, but they’d made it through. They were not confident about getting back through it.

But so far, this trip had seemed almost entirely a conglomeration of bad ideas. Why not add a few more?

No, thinking something like that wasn’t a great idea. Bad things tended to happen when you tempted fate. Arkane usually tried not to do that-

And this is why, Arkane thought moments later, as they heard the faint growling of a saber-toothed bear somewhere in the canyon. This is why. This. Is. Why.

“Oh, lord,” Casey moaned, looking up at the walls. “We’re dead. Did you hear that? We’re dead.”

Orca said nothing, but produced a telescoping rifle from her gear and settled the thing against her shoulder. It was extremely large, and Arkane wagered that if they tried to fire it they’d end up with a misfired shot and a broken shoulder.

“Orca, what are you doing?”

“Protecting us.” Orca scanned the clifftops. “Ursa said I had to.”

“Thanks,” Arkane said nervously. “Please don’t point that at me.”

“I wasn’t planning on it.”

They continued. Arkane checked their datapad; there were three tenths of a mile left until they made the safehouse.

The canyon was flat-bottomed and the sides were sheer with a few ledges here and there. At one point in their slow progress Arkane saw a white shape keeping pace with them high up on a ledge. Orca took aim with the rifle, but Arkane shook their head and put a hand on her shoulder.

“What? It’s in sight!”

“Don’t anger it. It may just leave us alone.”

“Don’t count on it,” Orca muttered, but lowered her rifle nonetheless.

In just a few minutes Arkane saw the safehouse. They lengthened their stride a little bit, eager to reach the warm haven, and evidently this was some kind of sign that the bear had been waiting for, because the faint growling escalated into a full roar as a white shape flashed across the ledge above.

Orca tracked it with the rifle. Arkane didn’t see what happened, as their minds were occupied by the bear, but they did notice the bear suddenly jerk backwards as a massive rapport sounded through the air and Orca stumbled back. The bear staggered, but recovered and looked straight at Orca, infuriated now. She discharged the shell and let another round slide into place, then knelt and settled the rifle against her shoulder again.

“No! Run for the shelter!” Arkane grabbed her coat hood and yanked; she had no choice but to follow, still clutching the rifle tightly in one hand.

Casey made a break for the safehouse, sprinting at top speed. Arkane was right behind him, and Orca behind them.

At one point Orca spun around, stood firm, and fired another shot at the bear. The kickback on the gun literally knocked her to the ground and Arkane hauled her up, but it certainly slowed the bear a lot.

Casey reached the door and tugged on the handle; it didn’t open. He tried to key in a number on the pad, but it blinked red at him.

“Shit!” He yelled, as Arkane slowed to a halt at the door. “I can’t-“

Arkane pushed him aside and keyed in the emergency opening number that they knew; it wasn’t common knowledge, but couriers knew it. No one else. It was changed every so often.

The door clicked open. Arkane shoved Casey inside, then turned and reached for Orca. Instead she crashed into them, shoving them inside the building, and continued through into the building’s interior. She pushed Arkane out of the way, then spun and shoved the door shut. Through the gap between door and frame, Arkane saw the terrifying image of the saber-toothed bear’s maw gaping open not two meters away from the wood. It was blood-spattered and vicious, and Orca slammed the door with all her body weight on it, forcing it closed. She hit the dead bolt the second before the bear ran headlong into the other side of it, throwing her back.

Arkane scrambled up and ran to a lever just to the right of the door. They pulled on it with all their might, and the lever slid several metal bars to place inside the door, holding it completely shut and locking it into place. Not even the bear would be able to tear that away now.

“We’re safe,” Arkane panted, leaning on the wall.

“Gods above,” Casey murmured, lying on the floor. “Never… never again.”

“Sorry about that, Arkane,” Orca apologized. “I didn’t- are the eggs okay?”

The eggs! Arkane had forgotten about them in the confusion. “I… I think so.” They pulled the box off their back and opened it cautiously.

The eggs rested in their gel casings, smooth white snowball spheres. Safe. Arkane nodded and closed the box again and rested it against one of the sparse pieces of furniture in the safehouse, close to the outer wall. “They’re fine.”

“Good.” Orca glanced at the door. “I hate to say it but we’re not going to be able to leave them outside. We’re going to have to risk having them in here tonight. I’m not opening that door until the bear is gone.”

“Agreed.”

The bear did not leave for a very long time. Arkane could hear it snuffling around the edges of the door, clawing at the wood and making agonized grunting and groaning sounds. Orca whispered to Arkane that she knew she’d hurt it; it was very damaged, she’d seen the blood staining its sides and its mouth. Internal bleeding. Something was very wrong with it.

“What is that weapon you’re using?” Arkane asked, at one point.

“It’s a Destroyer heavy sniper rifle,” Orca said, patting the rifle. “I call this one Skybreaker. But, uhh… it’s really powerful.”

“So I’ve noticed.” Arkane regarded the rifle with respect. “It’s very scary.”

“Yeah.”

Time was not their ally. As the sky outside darkened from hazy gray to fuzzy black, the bear stayed outside the safehouse. Arkane sat next to the eggs, waiting-

The box jiggled.

“Oh,” Arkane said, looking over at it. “That’s not-“

“Shit,” Orca muttered, also staring.

“What? What’s going on?” Casey sat up from where he had been lying on the couch. “What is- oh no, that’s not the box, is it?”

“It is.” Arkane nodded somberly, staring at it. “We let it get too warm.”

“It’s not exactly our fault!”

Arkane didn’t answer that. Instead they reached over and picked the box up. It felt lighter than it had before, if just by a little bit. Carefully they opened it and saw that some of the eggs had changed color- the blank white spheres had gained a kind of pearly sheen, and were a little more transparent now. Arkane could see small forms curled up in a few of the eggs.

“What do we do?” Orca asked.

Arkane regarded the eggs carefully. “Well,” they said after a moment. “We could try opening the door a bit, shooting the bear, and putting these back outside to see if they go back into hibernation. But that might kill them, I think.”

“So…?”

“We could also let them hatch.” Arkane looked at the eggs. The box was insulated, but it looked like the heat of the room had gotten to the top four eggs, and those ones were pearly and wiggling.

Silence, except for the snuffling of the bear.

“I say we do it,” Casey suddenly declared. “Let’s let them hatch. What’s the worst that could happen?”

“Never, ever utter those words again,” Orca warned him. “Lest I shoot you on accident.”

Arkane pulled one of their gloves off and reached into the box, scooping up one of the eggs. It was absolutely frigid against their hand, and they wondered just how cold these creatures had to be to stay dormant.

“We’d better get this box closed as quickly as possible unless we want forty of these things wandering around,” Arkane muttered. They turned and handed the egg to a surprised Casey, and then handed another egg to Orca. The last two they scooped out and set gently on the ground before closing the box and surrounding it with their coat, turned inside-out to try and keep the heat out of the box.

When Arkane turned to pick up the other two eggs, to their bewilderment, the eggs were now floating a few centimeters off the ground. “That’s…. okay,” Arkane said after a moment. “Hm.”

“Wow…” Orca studied the egg in her hands. It, too, was floating just above her skin. “They float!”

“That’s so neat,” Casey said, awed. “I wish I could do that!”

Arkane glanced up at the two. “Do either of you want one of these?”

Orca shook her head. “I don’t think that’s a good idea. If these really hatch and… remember what Ursa said about them?”

“They impress on a certain handler,” Arkane repeated, recalling the details given about the creatures. “And they communicate telepathically with only that handler and nobody else, except other creatures of the same species.”

“Right.” Orca chewed on her lower lip. “I don’t think I could handle two. Casey?”

“Nope, thanks.”

Arkane regarded the fourth egg. “I really don’t want to try and control two of these at once either. I suggest we let it hatch and… whoever it picks to impress on is its handler?”

“Seems fair.”

They had no time for further conversation, as one of the eggs in Arkane’s hands gave a great twitch, and Arkane sat down on the ground and laid the less lively egg on the ground in front of them. Orca and Casey also sat, cradling their eggs gently in their hands.

The pearl wiggled again, then distorted slightly as whatever was inside struggled frantically to get loose. Finally a miniscule point pierced through the shell, then retracted, then stabbed through at a different part of the shell. Arkane was sorely tempted to help the creature, but didn’t know if that’s what the species would naturally do. If the creature tired, Arkane would help.

They didn’t need to. The little beastie ruptured the surface of the egg and struggled out, shedding the pearly shell like a second skin. It then floated, exhausted, a centimeter of Arkane’s hand for a second before drifting down to land on their skin.

Arkane stared at it, astonished. The tiny creature resembled a very portly stingray, backswept triangular wings and body extremely light blue and white, its little head mostly flat with two opaque eyes and a flap of a mouth below. It had two little paddles in addition to its wings behind them, like feet, and a long tail tipped with a needle-like stinger.

“You are beautiful,” Arkane said without thinking, admiring the tiny creature immensely. Right now it was about the length of their hand, including the tail.

The creature seemed to become alert when Arkane spoke, and flapped its little wings a few times, rising off Arkane’s hand to hover at level with their eyes. Arkane didn’t know why, but as soon as the creature spoke they knew it was female.

<Who are you?>

Arkane stared, startled. “I’m Arkane,” they said without thinking.

<Arkane. Hi!>

“…hi.”

<I… don’t have a name. Give me a name?>

“Ah – sure.” Arkane thought for a moment. “How about Hibernia?”

<Hibernia. That’s good.> The creature bobbed where she was, as if thinking. <Hibernia. I like it.>

“Well, that’s good.”

“Sorry, uh, but who are you talking to?” Orca poked Arkane’s shoulder gently.

“Hibernia.”

“Who?”

Arkane indicated the beastie on their palm. “This is Hibernia. She was just named.” They paused. “It would seem they are sentient from hatching, and require a name as part of their impression or bonding. They will request a name.”

“Alright, then,” Orca murmured, drawing away. “That’s… okay, weird.”

“What are they?” Casey asked, staring at Hibernia in fascination.

Arkane only shrugged.

“They don’t have a name yet?”

“Not that I know of.”

“I’m going to call them… stormfliers,” Casey decided. “Like stormrunners. But they fly.”

Orca shrugged. “That sounds all right to- oh, Casey!”

“What?”

Casey’s egg wriggled madly. Casey yelped and scrambled backwards a bit, holding it like a live bomb, eyes massive in his face. “What do I do?!”

“Just let it hatch. And then talk to it.” Arkane backed away, not wanting Casey’s creature to impress on them.

The egg split open and Casey watched his stormflier hatch out. It was a uniform shade of blue-gray, with a white belly, and the same opaque eyes as Hibernia.

“A name?” Casey said after a moment. “Umm… UH. I don’t- I don’t know! I could- what?” He listened to nothing for a few seconds, staring at the tiny creature, then looked up, thinking. “I guess… What about Zenith?”

“Ooh, that’s nice,” Orca muttered.

“Oh, good,” Casey said, grinning broadly. Arkane raised an eyebrow. Casey lifted his hands a little bit, supporting the stormflier in them. “This is Zenith!”

Orca looked expectantly at her egg. It did nothing, and she frowned. “Come on,” she muttered. “Oh, I hope it’s not dead. I mean. If it is I can just take that one and it’s no big deal.” She shrugged her own concerns off, but Arkane could tell she desperately did not want the egg in her hands to be dead.

It wasn’t. It started to move minutes later, and hatched into a baby stormflier a good finger’s length longer than Hibernia. Furthermore, the new hatchling was a deep black color with strikingly geometric white markings.

“Epsilon,” Orca decided instantly. “I don’t know why. But you’re Epsilon. Are you okay with that?” She was addressing the stormflier, and evidently it responded, because Orca nodded, smiling despite herself. “You don’t talk much,” she murmured. “I like you.”

And then all attention was focused on the egg hovering just above the floor between them all. Would it even hatch? Arkane wondered, staring at it. So far it wasn’t moving- wait, no, there it went.

Nobody said anything as the egg split open after a few strenuous minutes, and the last stormflier struggled out. It was smaller than the rest of them, by far, maybe half the size of Epsilon. Arkane held their breath as it floated above its eggshell for a moment, tiny sides heaving.

It spun in a slow circle, looking at everyone, and finally settled on Arkane. They felt their heart sink a bit as it drifted over to look at them. They held out a hand and it backed off, then observed the other two runners.

“Gotta pick someone eventually,” Orca muttered. “Did it speak to either of you?”

“Not yet,” Casey said.

It drifted back over to Arkane and waited. With a sigh, they held out one hand and it floated down onto their fingertips. <Hi,> it told them quietly.

Arkane knew it was male when they heard the voice. “Hello,” they said, resigned to this fate. Now they had two little stormfliers to deal with. Gods only knew how they’d feed the beasties.

<Who are you?>

“I’m Arkane. I should probably name you…”

<I’d like that.>

Arkane stared at the creature. He was a pale, wispy gray color, with tatters of lighter and darker scattered over his little body like camouflage. Like fog, Arkane thought. Just as pretty as Hibernia. “Samath,” they decided, holding out one hand. Samath floated down and rested on Arkane’s palm, still breathing hard.

<Thank you.>

“Looks like you got him, Arkane,” Orca said, sounding relieved. “I feel kind of sorry for you.”

“I feel a bit sorry for myself. Do you know what they eat?”

Orca shook her head. “No. Ursa never mentioned anything like that. We weren’t supposed to let them hatch…”

<Are you talking about us?> Hibernia floated close to Arkane’s left ear.

“Yes,” Arkane answered her, glancing over. “We don’t know what you eat.”

<Oh. Well… neither do we.>

“Fantastic.” Arkane rubbed their forehead. “We could accidentally poison you without knowing it.”

<No, it’s okay! If it’s not good for us we can spit it out!>

Arkane stood wearily and walked past the fire to the storage cabinets. There were usually some provisions for stormrunners left in the safehouses, just in case. It was basically protocol at this point.

There wasn’t a huge selection, but there was some sort of dried fish which Arkane thought might go over well given the stormfliers’ apparent ancestry. “What about this?”

Hibernia scooted through the air over to Arkane’s shoulder, and looked at it. <What is that?>

“I’m not really sure…”

<Okay. I’ll try it.>

Arkane unwrapped the fish and laid it out. Hibernia settled down on the counter and used her peculiar little mouth to bite off some of the fish and… chew it? Arkane couldn’t tell.

<I think it’s good,> she said after a moment, bobbing up and down in the air. Arkane noted that she had tiny little siphons lining her spine and belly, along with having a few scattered on her sides and even wingtips. Presumably, this was how she controlled herself in the air. She was already very good at it. <I’ll eat it. It won’t be bad for me.> She turned and evidently called the other stormfliers, because Zenith and Epsilon floated over while Samath wobbled after them, still exhausted from his hatching.

Arkane took nearly all the dried fish they could find, apologizing to any future stormrunner who came through here hoping for dried fish. The stormfliers needed food, and Arkane wasn’t going to have them starve, not while could help it. Despite the tiny creatures being a lab-created species and indeed not being more than an hour old, Arkane loved them dearly.

Orca leaned against the wall, watching. Hibernia, being the first-born, ate her fill of dried fish first, and then let the rest of the stormfliers eat. Despite being the smallest, Samath didn’t eat last- Epsilon did, waiting silently for the others to leave. He seemed to be utterly silent compared to the others.

Then again, Epsilon and Zenith couldn’t speak to Arkane, which probably explained that.

After a while, Arkane noticed that they couldn’t hear the bear anymore. “Hmm,” they said, venturing over by the door. “Do you think it’s gone?”

“With our luck? No,” Casey called, from where he was sprawled on a tattered couch near the fire.

“I’ll check,” Orca volunteered, somewhat reluctantly.

<What’s going on? You need to look outside?> Hibernia sounded very excited. <I can do that!>

“Really?” Arkane glanced over at her. “You’d do that?”

<I just need to get out. What am I looking for?>

“A saber-toothed bear.”

<What’s that look like?>

Arkane pictured the bear, trying to figure out how to describe it. “Err… well-“

<Oh, I see. That’s scary.>

“…I didn’t say anything-“

<You made a picture for me.>

Apparently, Hibernia had the ability to read pictures out of Arkane’s mind. The stormrunner wondered if they even needed to speak aloud to communicate with her, or if she could just read their mind.

<I don’t think I can do that. I can try, though.>

“Arkane, what is going on?”

Arkane shook themselves back into the real world. “Hibernia says she can check outside.”

Orca shrugged. “Fine by me.”

With that assent, Arkane crossed the room to the window and unlatched it, pushing it outwards. A blast of cold, snowy air swirled in, even though the window opened outwards and up. Hibernia gently floated over and dropped out of the window and out of view. It made Arkane nervous, to have her vanish like that, and they hoped she’d be alright in the wind outside.

<Okay, I’m going up,> she reported. <I don’t see the bear anywhere. I’m checking around the… around this.>

Amused by her updates, Arkane smiled to themselves. “Be careful.”

<I know! It’s not that bad, flying, actually.> Her absence still made Arkane a little twitchy. <There’s no bear here. Not anywhere I can see. There’s a lot of stuff by the door though.>

Blood from Orca’s shots, Arkane knew. Perhaps the bear had crawled off to somewhere else and would die and leave them alone. Arkane felt a little bad for thinking like that, but honestly, they cared more about their life and their teammates’ lives than the life of the bear. “Thank you. Come back, if you would.”

<Right here,> Hibernia piped, appearing under the window and floating up. <Whoo! That was fun.>

Arkane smiled again, yanking the window shut. “I’m glad you enjoyed it.”

“Any bear?”

“No,” Arkane reported, holding out one hand. Hibernia settled happily into it, rippling her little wings gently. “The bear’s gone. It bled a lot by the door, but it’s nowhere to be seen.”

“Great.” Orca checked her watch. “This storm should be over in a few minutes, right?”

Arkane checked their watch. “Right. About twelve. We should head for the next house in the break… it’ll be about half an hour. Plenty of time to get there.” They paused, scrolling through details on their datapad. “Past that there’s a two and a half mile walk. Shouldn’t be too difficult, as long as we don’t get lost.” Arkane nervously keyed in their current location and plotted a series of turns and directions to help them get through this labyrinthian canyon system.

It was a lot harder than they expected.

The leftovers from the storm were swirling around in misty tatters. Arkane had a minute heart attack when Samath vanished into one of these pillars of fog, unaware that the stormflier’s coloring made perfect camouflage in this weather. The stormflier’s drifted by their runners, flitting above the group and probably talking silently with each other. Arkane could occasionally hear snippets of conversation, but chose not to listen in.

And, inevitably, they got lost.

“We take the third left here,” Arkane called, speaking clearly to be heard through their mask. “Past these two ca- er.”

They stopped dead in their tracks. “Let me just check the directions.”

Orca and Casey gathered around. “Are we lost?” Casey wanted to know immediately.

“No! Hold on.” Arkane scrolled through, trying to figure out where they’d taken a wrong turn. “We just… need… let me think.”

“I hate everything,” Orca proclaimed.

Epsilon vanished. He reappeared moments later, holding some sort of flying creature in his mouth. It was dead, and he stared at Orca for a few moments before swallowing it.

“Alright,” Orca said a bit loudly.

“We just need to backtrack,” Arkane said. “Turn around. We’re headed for a landmark. We need to get back to the main canyon.”

“So we are lost,” Casey concluded.

Arkane sighed. “If you really want to say it like that, yes. I prefer to say we have become slightly disoriented. If I could see this from above…”

But they could.

With this thought Arkane turned to Hibernia. “Hibernia, would you do me a favor?”

<What do you need?>

“I need you to fly high enough that you can see this canyon laid out all over the ground and tell us how to get to the biggest part.”

<I can do that!> Hibernia did something, inflating herself a bit, and rocketed upwards into the atmosphere. <How high up do I need to go?>

“Not too high! Just so you can see the canyon layout but also see us.”

“Arkane, what the hell are you doing?”

“Getting a bird’s-eye view,” Arkane answered, exhilarated. They stared up as Hibernia's already tiny form vanished into the clouds.

<I can see it now.>

“Alright. Can you tell us how to get back to the main canyon?”

<I think so. Turn around and go back to the little place you were in before – the one you were walking in.>

Arkane obeyed.

<And go… to your left. Right? Left! Left.>

They proceeded like this for a while, with Hibernia directing them and Samath and Zenith scouting ahead for enemies. Epsilon watched behind them, a guard to watch against ambush.

They evaded all problems. Samath warned them of a new colony of rock wyrms that had settled in a side canyon just off the main pathway, and Arkane made a note of it so they could update the stormrunner database with the information.

Epsilon let them know about a shadow leopard stalking them. Orca scared it off with a few shots from her pistol.

And the stormfliers led them safely out.


	20. The Amelia: Fire on Averan

They did end up waiting a while in Kalyrio High Port, to the annoyance of another luxury frigate that had booked the dock but had to be moved elsewhere.

Raleigh hated holding things up. She knew she was causing problems, and didn’t like it, so she tried to get herself back to normal duty as quickly as possible.

Doctor Vivaki and Charis seemed to be extremely concerned about her mental welfare. She assured them that she was fine, believing it herself; finally they decided it was alright for her to fly.

She settled herself down in her chair, bringing up the HUD and rearranging things until they looked right again. That was comfortable, nice. She brought up the scanners and set them to run quietly behind the ship, readings playing out in the corner of her screen where they wouldn’t distract her but would catch her attention if something spiked.

“Welcome back,” Vari said, raising her personal comms. “Good to have you here. Now we can finally get something done.”

“Thanks,” Raleigh replied, smiling. “It’s been boring.”

“Let’s change that.”

“Alright.”

They pulled the Amelia out of the dock and finally vacated the port. Raleigh noted that some quoli had started building a nest in the docking clamps- a sign they’d been there too long.

Kalyrio High Port Control was very glad to see them go. The crew of the Amelia was glad to leave.

Next stop was Averan.

They’d gotten a new set of instructions- they were to pick up some supplies on Averan, which is something everyone on the crew had been hoping to avoid.

Averan was the sort of stereotypical home of the nyphelim, Raleigh knew, and was completely covered by and almost made of plants. This made her nervous, because the Amelia’s subjets of course operated with fire, meaning that she could hypothetically burn the plant-minds…

“Don’t worry about it,” Vari told her at one point. “I’ll handle it. We won’t so much as singe a twig, trust me. Just stay there and do what you do best with the kinetics.”

That Raleigh could do easily.

The approach to Averan’s inner side looked like a descent into a green ocean. The plants grew over everything, including the crumbled remains of more than a few abandoned cities and spaceports and even at one point a derelict dreadnought lying dead beneath the roots.

The Averani spaceports literally looked like wooden mountains growing out of the forest. That’s basically what they were, in fact, and Raleigh was very nervous to be around them. Wood ignited easily.

The Amelia made a smooth approach into one of the ports, one grown by a plant-mind that seemed to resemble twisted, tangled jungle versions of birch trees. The coloring was pale yellow and cream and white mixed with very dark brown and a deep glossy emerald.

Vari used the jets sparingly, instead choosing to coast for a lot of the duration of the approach. The entrance to the port was wide enough that he could use jets without worrying, but he had to gain enough height to glide down to their little dock without using them again. The Amelia could blow air out the jets, giving her some lift, but it wasn’t nearly as much as the subjets normally gave.

They settled the ship down on a latticed network of branches that could be drawn away to let the ship fall- that’s how they would depart without having to jet off the supports. The Amelia drew her wings in and powered down her engines.

“Alright, crew,” Vari called over the intercoms. “Before anybody goes anywhere: This is very important. Do not mention fire, do not smoke, do not do anything that could create a spark, do not use flame metaphors, do not do anything of the sort. The nyphelim of the plant-minds have really strict laws against this kind of thing and are perfectly able and actually legally allowed- here- to kill you if you break those laws. The commander and I would really like to have all of you return to this ship when we leave and preferably return with all of your original body parts attached, so… follow the rules and don’t do any of those things that I mentioned. Alright. Go have fun while we offload some cargo.”

Again, the entire process of offloading took about a week, although theirs was cut a bit short by some untimely events.

Raleigh was accompanying Charis on shore. With them were two crew members Raleigh wasn’t familiar with, Phrell, and Kthfthkthir, who felt comfortable exploring the area as there were no other khavvichthi around.

The architecture, Raleigh noted, was marvelous. She couldn’t stop staring at the arching cathedral-like trunks that were intertwined and latticed, forming thick wooden walls and ceilings. Sunlight did manage to filter down through the roof, through a few larger gaps that were filled with a sort of clear resin. No glass, of course; that would require intense heat and flame, which of course was rather taboo on Averan.

Knowing that the nyphelim here were allowed to kill her made Raleigh nervous. A lot of the dockworkers, including the security guards, were dressed in mostly decorative robes, the embroidery designs copied on small medallions they were all wearing-

No, they weren’t medallions. They were batteries, and when Raleigh looked closer she could see that some of the embroidery threads were actually the conductor wires for the kinetics. So the guards all had shields, they were just… harder to see.

“Alright,” Charis said after a bit, stopping their group outside the main trade office. “I’m hesitant, but I think…” she paused, staring directly at Raleigh. “I am going to let you go places without me. Do you think you can do this without getting kidnapped?”

Raleigh sighed. “Probably,” she said. “I altered my kinetics to shock anyone who touches me without permission.”

“Good.” Charis paused, glancing around. “You take Kthfthkthir and Phrell with you.”

“But, Charis-“

Charis raised an eyebrow and tilted her head slightly.

“Oh, fine.”

Charis nodded. “You two! With me.” She snapped her fingers; the other crewmembers fell in beside her while Phrell and Kthfthkthir backed up a bit to take their places just behind Raleigh. Charis stared at the three of them for a second, then nodded. “Stay safe.” She stared at Raleigh for a few more seconds, expression unreadable, then turned and entered the trade office.

Raleigh watched her go, completely unsure of what to do next.

“She’s given us free reign,” Phrell said, sounding pleased. “Good. We can go searching.”

“Searching? For what?”

“Charis’ enemy.”

Raleigh paused, uncertain. “…what?”

Phrell sighed. “Charis wants to find whoever organized your kidnapping and take them in. Or kill them. One of these things.”

“Oh.” Raleigh couldn’t argue. She was equally as displeased with whoever had ordered the events on Kalyrio. “I guess she’s still mad-“

“As am I,” Phrell interrupted, xir voice dropping into an angry growl. It still sounded like music. Anything Phrell said sounded like music. “I took the liberty of asking Kthfthkthir for help. Hope you don’t mind.”

“Uhh… it’s not like it belongs to me, so…”

“I jumped on the signal from a radio that one of your captors dropped,” Kthfthkthir began. “I traced the signals of every channel possible. Most did not go anywhere, but one of them was still tuned into a public messaging station outside an empty multi-ship dock. An inspection of the dock revealed that it had been used very recently by multiple ships. The records told me that there were three ships: The _Lapponica_, the _Kettlegrim_, and the _Ariadne_.” The speech processor seemed to have some trouble with the pronunciation of _Lapponica_ and _Ariadne_, and Kthfthkthir shook its head in annoyance.

Phrell took over while Kthfthkthir flexed its hands to stretch them. “We don’t know which of the ships held whoever used the machine to send orders to your captors, but we only got that information right before we left the port. Charis wouldn’t let anyone on or off the ship; I just barely got off to go take care of some matters involving my friend.”

“Sooo what does that mean? What should we do?”

“Find out who those ships are owned by.”

“We couldn’t do that from the Amelia?”

Phrell shook xir head. “We didn’t have the clearance for the databases. We can try and use the public one here, or get clearance from the security office.”

Raleigh considered this. “How do we access the public database?” she asked after a moment.

“We go to the security office. But we don’t need to ask them for anything special. We just access the base and search through the registries.”

“Alright.” Raleigh glanced around. “Which way to…”

Kthfthkthir pointed. Raleigh nodded and followed it as it led the way across the plaza. She admired how the khavvichthi’s many legs made for a very smooth walk.

She glanced around as they reached the security office and went inside.

The public records terminals were set up in a small side room, away from the hubbub of the halls and the trade floor; for hubbub there was- Averan was a valuable supplier of breathable atmosphere. Kalyrio would send its tainted air here to be released, the pollutants scrubbed out by the plant-minds and other vegetation, and Kalyrio bought a lot of clean air to cycle through buildings and indoor areas. in truth, without the influx of non-oxygenated air, Averan’s trees would not grow as large as they did- there were very few animals on Averan, meaning little besides the nyphelim used up the oxygen or produced carbon dioxide.

Kthfthkthir reached the terminal first and immediately began working. Raleigh wasn’t quite sure what it was doing; she simply stayed aside and let the khavvichthi do its work.

“The registries are being difficult,” Kthfthkthir said after a moment. “Phrell, would you be so kind as to ask a series of inane questions to the security officer that ensure that he does not have the time to look at his monitor and notice anything that could possibly go wrong at this terminal?”

“With pleasure,” Phrell responded, and turned in a magnificent swirl of feathers. Xir movement easily caught the eye of the security officer, who was curious to see what such an odd group of spacers were doing in the room in the first place. “Hello,” Phrell began. “I’m a rather new diplomat here, you see, and I was wondering if maybe you’d had anything dropped off from a cousin of mine…”

“Kthy, I don’t think that’s legal,” Raleigh whispered.

“I agree,” Kthfthkthir answered, the datapad voice pleasant as always, and unfortunately loud. Kthfthkthir glanced sharply at it and dialed the volume down with a quick movement. “But it is definitely useful.”

“Useful?”

“One moment, please,” Kthfthkthir typed out. “I must concentrate.”

Raleigh obligingly stayed quiet while the khavvichthi worked with the terminal. It flicked through screens too quickly for Raleigh to follow, then flickered and spasmed for a moment before returning to the home screen. Kthfthkthir seemed pleased, and made a series of intricate whirly clicking noises to indicate its pleasure.

“Yay,” Raleigh tried.

Kthfthkthir, again adopting body language for when it couldn’t stop to ‘talk,’ nodded sharply twice. The screens flicked by again, but Kthfthkthir seemed to be scrolling through a set of lists. Occasionally the indicator cursor on the screen would select a certain listing and save it in a box off to the side. Raleigh tried to follow Kthfthkthir’s processes, but couldn’t keep up.

“I have answers,” Kthfthkthir finally said, transferring the data it had grabbed to its datapad. “And now… Oh, dear. I seem to have done something that has caused this machine to crash.” It looked innocently over at Raleigh, then tapped a few buttons. The terminal’s screen blacked out. “How clumsy of me. What a misfortune.”

“You’re overplaying it a little bit there,” Raleigh advised. “Now you’re just being obvious.”

“That was my intent. I was hoping to amuse you. We are in no danger of being overheard.”

“Oh,” Raleigh said. “Well… it was funny. You act really polite all the time but you’re actually pretty sassy, aren’t you?”

Kthfthkthir did that odd rolling motion with its arms that resembled a shrug. “If you wish to use those terms, then… yes, I suppose.”

Raleigh ‘hmm’ed a laugh to herself. “Yeah, you are.”

Phrell returned, collected as always. “A shame,” xi said, glancing back at the rather annoyed-looking security officer. “He didn’t have any record of a cousin of mine dropping anything off for me here. We even went and searched the back rooms. Unbelievable.” Xi shook xir head, sighing. “We’ll have to try somewhere else.”

“Agreed,” Kthfthkthir ‘said,’ nodding again. “We have no further purpose here.”

They left the security office and strolled across the plaza to a less busy area, where hopefully nobody would overhear them. “What did we find out?” Phrell wanted to know, shifting on xir front feet. Xi narrowed xir bright yellow eyes. “How do I find the murderer?”

“All three of the ships that were in the dock at the time of the incident on Kalyrio are registered in the database. Two to private owners, one to a small advanced watchmaking company.”

“We can probably rule out that last one,” Raleigh murmured.

“I agree,” Kthfthkthir said. “The two private owners are… a Dr. Syli Vergon, who owns the Lapponica, and a Ms. Kaliel Tchynhrra, of the Ariadne.”

Raleigh frowned. “How do we know which to pursue?”

“We must follow the paths of both, and determine later which one is our true target.”

“There’s got to be something…” As much as she hated revisiting the event, Raleigh raked through her memory for any mention of the leader of her captors.

Nothing.

“I have found something,” Kthfthkthir said abruptly, staring at its datapad. “The crew listings of both of these ships. Listed amongst the crew of the Ariadne is a T. Gelowsky.” It paused, looking, rapidly switching between the data and the text-to-speech program. “He was recently allowed to leave the ship’s crew and took up residence on Corrix.”

“He’s the one who tried to kill us,” Raleigh remembered. “He shot you.”

“Yes.”

Phrell glanced over, looking at Kthfthkthir’s metallic legs. “What did you do?”

“We killed him.”

“Good.”

“So it is likely,” Kthfthkthir interrupted, “that our target is someone aboard the Ariadne. Someone serving beneath Miss Tchynhrra.”

“Or it might be her,” Phrell pointed out. “We don’t know for sure.”

“True. We do not know.”

Raleigh shook her head. “It’s next to impossible to track this person down.”

“No, it isn’t,” Phrell immediately countered. “We’ve got a limited list of suspects now instead of an entire galaxy’s worth of people to check over.”

“I-“ Raleigh paused, staring across the square. Someone was staring at them- a nyphelim leaning against a wall, dressed in mottled brownish clothing and a long coat. “Uhh, is it just me, or…?”

Phrell glanced over, ready to dismiss whatever it was and continue the conversation, but paused when xi saw it. “No,” xi said after a moment. “It’s not just you. Who is that?”

“Who?” Kthfthkthir asked.

“That guy over there,” Raleigh said, trying to indicate the stranger without pointing. “That nyphelim over there. He’s just… staring at us.”

They stared back at him. Abruptly, the nyphelim turned and vanished down an alleyway, walking slowly enough for them to easily tell where he was going.

“I don’t think this is a good idea,” Raleigh said, to forestall any ideas her companions had.

“Well, I do,” Phrell decided. “I’m going.”

“Dammit.”

They crossed the plaza again and followed the nyphelim’s trail. He seemed to be waiting for them, pausing to swirl around corners in his weird coat just so they could follow him. Finally they turned a corner he’d gone around and found no sign of him. He’d vanished entirely.

They did, however, find a group of armed men and women nestling a large object beneath some of the branches in the wall of the cavern. Watching them was another woman, a nyphelim woman, obviously commanding the group. She stood leaning against the wall of the building, arms folded, and she was wearing a kind of tight clothing that filled in the gaps her natural armor left uncovered.

“And who’s staying here?” one of the men asked, glancing over at her.

“I hadn’t decided,” the woman replied. “I think it’ll be you, though. Thanks for volunteering.”

“Oh.”

“Cheer up. At least you’re near the spaceport. Maybe you’ll get out before it burns to the ground.”

Raleigh caught her breath. What? Burns to the ground? She moved a bit to get a better look at whatever was being wedged in the wall. True to her expectations, it looked rather like a bomb. There was a panel on the front with a keypad and a number display; it was a very traditional-looking bomb, at least.

“Thank you,” the man said dejectedly.

The woman shrugged.

“Suspicious, don’t you think?” whispered a voice next to Raleigh’s ear. She jumped and her kinetics immediately shocked whoever was behind her. “Ow!”

“Who are you?” she hissed, turning.

It was the nyphelim from before. “That, in case you are wondering, is the captain of the _Ariadne_, which docked a week and a half ago. Her name is Kaliel, and you are looking for her.”

“Wait, that’s her?” Raleigh’s heart seized. “That’s-“

“How do we know we can trust you?” Phrell snapped, swirling in from the side. Xir voice was pitched down to a rumbling (but still melodic) growl.

“You don’t. But why would I lie?” the nyphelim smiled. “What’s the point?”

“Are you quite finished?” the woman outside called, making Raleigh jump again- but she wasn’t addressing Raleigh’s small group. She was staring in annoyance at the men with the bomb.

“Yes, Kaliel,” one of them said. “We, er… it’s in.”

“Fantastic. We can finally move- ooh, we really only have two or so more, don’t we?”

“Yes, and they’re just little ones. Not like this monster,” the man replied.

“Lovely. Let’s go!” Kaliel clapped her hands twice to get the group moving. They left the bomb where it was, blinking gently, accompanied by one unhappy man who was evidently to activate it when the time came.

“Nope,” Raleigh whispered, and shrank back. “I’m not going anywhere near that.”

“What?” Phrell seemed outraged. “Are you-“

“They are armed and they will kill me,” Raleigh interrupted. “Please no.”

The nyphelim watched Kaliel and her underlings go, disappearing along another cavernside alley. “A pity,” he said, frowning. “But I have given you the information you needed; do with it what you will.” He turned to leave-

Phrell snatched the edge of his coat, pulling him back. “Not so quickly. How’d you know what we were looking for? How’d you know where that woman was?”

The nyphelim seemed annoyed. He gently detached his coat from Phrell’s grasp. “I was also searching for Kaliel. I kept stepping on your trail looking for clues.”

“Why were you looking for her?”

“Are we going to do anything about that bomb?” The nyphelim looked around Phrell at the bomb. “Maybe disarm it, or report it…”

“I want to go after those men and kill that woman,” Phrell snarled, stepping forward and forcing the nyphelim to take a step back. “But Raleigh isn’t doing that, and I am to protect Raleigh right now. I don’t really care about the bomb unless Raleigh wants to do something about it. Now, why were you looking for Kaliel?”

Raleigh flinched. Phrell’s voice- well, voices- were raised, and it sounded a bit like three people shouting at once.

“Do not touch me,” the nyphelim snapped back, also loudly. Raleigh noticed that Kthfthkthir was also shrinking away from this argument.

“Answer my question!”

“I’m leaving,” Raleigh whispered.

Kthfthkthir seemed to be the only one that heard. Raleigh stepped backwards, heart pounding. She didn’t like this, she didn’t like the armed men that Phrell wanted to attack, she didn’t like the stranger talking to them, she didn’t like the alleyway they were in. She backed away from Phrell and the nyphelim, stumbled over the uneven floor, and ran.

The plaza was well-lit. Raleigh sprinted out into it and tried to get a grip on herself, but all she really wanted to do was get back to the ship. And what was stopping her? Nothing.

Best to go, then.

Shakily she made her way back do the docks and onto the ship. Kthfthkthir followed silently, moving faster than Raleigh had imagined it could.

It was so nice here, she thought to herself as she reentered the _Amelia_. Enclosed and safe and quiet, even when it wasn’t running and she couldn’t feel the thrum of the engines or hear the quiet whooshing of the subjets. She gathered herself, leaning against a wall, and went and sat at her station to stare at the ceiling.

Someone walked past behind her. “Oh, hey, Raleigh,” they said, and she looked a little farther back and saw Vari looking at her. “Everything alright?”

“Um,” she started, and thought about this. Not really. “Uhhh…. no.”

“Oh,” Vari said, evidently not expecting that answer. “Well.”

She opened her mouth, then shut it again.

“Perhaps we should notify someone of authority about the encounter in the alleyway,” Kthfthkthir said, managing to make spying on Kaliel sound like something else entirely.

Vari looked nervous. “Encounter in- did someone try to kidnap you again?”

Why does everyone keep bringing that up? Raleigh wondered. “No, uh… There was this lady, and she- um…”

Kthfthkthir took over. “The captain of the _Ariadne_ is a nyphelim named Kaliel. We spotted her and her crew laying a bomb in the wall of the cavern nearby.”

Vari choked on nothing, going white. “Excuse me?!”

“She wishes to burn the spaceport,” Kthfthkthir said. “I do not know why.”

“I assume you reported this to the authorities?”

Raleigh paused, then shook her head.

“What? Why not?!”

She didn’t have an answer for that. Vari turned and vanished towards the cockpit. “Jesus,” Raleigh heard him mutter. And then: “Commander? Yeah, we have a situation- no, nothing like that. Just, uh- yeah, it’s- no, she’s fine. But you might want to tell the security office that someone was planting bombs around the-“

An explosion echoed somewhere in the depths of the cavernous port. Raleigh jumped, and Vari swore several times in succession and switched over to personal comms.

“This is Vari to all crew members. Get back on the ship, now. There’s an emergency somewhere outside and if you’re caught out there, well, there won’t be much we can do to help you. So all crew members report back to the ship, now!”

Raleigh drew her legs up into her chair, clasping her arms around them. She wondered where Phrell was, and that odd nyphelim.

Her question was answered when Phrell whisked past her chair, fluffed up to twice xir normal size. The nyphelim from earlier followed.

Charis stormed in after them, followed by a few terrified crew members. “Get the ship moving!” she yelled. “We don’t have time to still be in here! Go!”

Realizing that ‘getting the ship moving’ was part of her job, Raleigh turned and focused on her display. Obviously, they weren’t going to get the branch lattice that held the ship up to drop away. They’d either have to scorch it with the subjets or find another way to get away from it.

Likely scorching it wouldn’t matter if the place was going to blow up.

Still, though. In the off chance that the entire port didn’t get destroyed, she wanted to show that at least they showed some sort of respect for the plant-minds that grew this place. She pushed with the kinetics, visibly levitating the ship up until the subjets didn’t totally burn the lattice. “We can go,” she said quietly.

The _Amelia_’s engines activated and she powered up and away from the lattice. Raleigh let the kinetics fall back into place. The ship swiveled masterfully and shot off, back through the crowded port- now filled with confused ships either hovering in place or trying to leave- and out into the air.

“Go, go, go,” Charis shouted, running past Raleigh and down over to Vari. “Get us out of here!”

“I am trying,” he replied, forcefully calm.

Charis rubbed her face with one hand. “How did you know about the bombs?”

“Uh,” Vari started, and stopped. Raleigh winced. Oh, Charis was not going to be pleased. “…Raleigh told me.”

“Raleigh?” Charis sounded genuinely surprised. “How…?”

“She and Kth…. she and Kthy and Phrell saw something go down somewhere in the caverns. She came here and let me know.”

“…Not to station authorities?”

I can hear you, Raleigh thought. I’m right over here. You are not silent. I’m not listening through the eavesdropper. I can literally hear everything you’re saying from here.

“Nnno.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t know, Commander!” Vari was understandably frustrated. “I don’t know. Don’t ask me, okay?”

Charis didn’t say anything, but turned and headed for Raleigh, who shrank back in her seat.

“Raleigh.”

“Yyyes?”

“What the hell were you thinking?”

She flinched again. “I-“

“You saw someone laying bombs and you _didn’t report it_? Are you _insane_?!” Charis rubbed the sides of her head. “How much time did you have? How long did you keep that interesting little tidbit of information to yourself?”

“I’m sorry, I-“

“That’s really not good enough,” Charis snapped, and leaned over Raleigh to do something to her display. She brought up the view from the rear cameras and both of them watched as something else blew up, this time near the top of the station, causing a colossal bloom of bright orange flames to expand outwards from the wooden walls. Flames were already taking over the structure completely. “Look at that.”

“I see it…”

“So why didn’t you say anything? Because _that could have been prevented!”_

“I panicked,” Raleigh whispered, mostly to herself.

Charis didn’t have an answer to this. She swiped the camera feed off Raleigh’s screen and stared at her for a few seconds, then gave an angry sigh and left, striding off the bridge to somewhere else.

Raleigh hunched her shoulders up. She caught a glimpse of Vari looking over, his expression caught somewhere between pity and annoyance.

There was nothing else to do, so Raleigh sat still and monitored the shields.

Charis swept back the other way after a time, followed by Phrell and the still-unnamed nyphelim. They gathered around Vari.

“Someone’s raising the ship, Commander,” Vari reported.

“We’re aware.” Charis gestured, and the nyphelim leaned over and tapped into the communications.

“Yes,” he said after a moment. “Alright. Yes, I- hello, cousin. No, I’m aboard the ship. I’m aware. I can assure you that this ship is not responsible for the occurrences below.”

Phrell sat down, wrapping xir tail neatly around xir hands, and waited. Occasionally xi would glance over at Raleigh, expression unreadable.

“Do you not trust me, Curalil? Please tell your superiors that I am absolutely sure in my information. I know who is responsible, and it’s nobody aboard this ship. It isn’t worth it to try and impound this ship- it really isn’t, please don’t- and- what?”

A pause.

“Alright, I see, but that doesn’t apply here. And my task does coincide. You’re looking for the _Ariadne_, cousin. Not the _Amelia_. If you can shoot the _Ariadne_ down, then do it, or convince someone else to… How do I know? Well that was my job, now, wasn’t it?” The nyphelim sighed. “Take the information or don’t. I have given you what you seek; it’s your choice whether to use it. Apprehend the target or don’t. Either way I am finished with this conversation, cousin, and if you choose to target this ship you will have much to pay for later, so I suggest you avoid that.”

The nyphelim cut the connection and stood up, sighing. “Ridiculous.”

“Aaaaand who was that?” Vari asked, curious.

“A cousin of mine who works in station control,” the nyphelim replied. “He thought we were the ones who planted those bombs.” He shook his head. “I have redirected his interest towards his actual targets.”

“Thanks,” Charis said. “Helpful of you.”

“Of course.” The nyphelim made a slight bow. “Anything else I can assist with?”

“Yes,” Charis replied. “I’d like to ask who you are and how you got on my ship.”

“My name is Dewbud,” the nyphelim replied. “I was searching for a certain ship captain in the port below. The same one who set those charges. I was sent-“ he paused, thinking. “I was sent to take her into custody.”

“Uh-huh,” Charis said flatly. “Of course.”

“You sound dubious.”

“I am dubious.”

Dewbud spread his arms slightly. “Why would I lie?”

Charis shook her head and did not respond to that. She turned and left the group, stopping as she walked by Raleigh.

“Raleigh,” she said, without looking at the secondary, “from now on you’re forbidden to leave the ship when we dock.”

“What?!”

“You heard me.”

“But-“

“No.”

Raleigh sank back in her chair. “What good am I here?” she asked quietly. “I can’t do anything stuck on the ship.”

“Apparently you can’t do anything outside it, either, except cause trouble,” Charis snapped. “And don’t start with being useful out there.”

“I found-“

“It doesn’t matter what you found. You didn’t let anybody know, so you may as well have not found it after all. You are confined to the ship and I am altering the VI to prevent you from leaving. If you try, the ship will not let you out. Is that clear?”

“…yes, Commander.”

Charis paused, as if caught by surprise. Raleigh stared at her blank display.

“…well-“

“Is there anything else, Commander?” Raleigh asked, cutting Charis off. She spoke in a monotone. Please go away, she thought. You’re making me feel worse than I already do.

“No. That’ll be all. Carry on.”

“Yes ma’am.”

Charis left, leaving the bridge behind. Raleigh rearranged her HUD, didn’t like it, and switched it back to the default settings.

“We’re staying in orbit around Averan until everything is sorted out,” she heard Vari tell Phrell and Dewbud. “So we won’t be moving on for a bit. Uhhh, Dewbud… Get one of the crewmembers to show you to… somewhere in the ship. Until we can get somewhere to set down, you’re stuck here.”

“I don’t mind. You have a very nice ship,” Dewbud replied.

“Thanks.”

Raleigh tuned out of the conversation. She didn’t want to hear about it.

The _Amelia_ remained, gently drifting through orbit. Below, Averan burned.


	21. Interlude - Lore: The Fifth Ring

Iridere is known as being a construction made up of a Core and seven Rings.

However, this is not strictly true. There were not always seven Rings.

Iridere was originally constructed with eight Rings: Ferolus, Wenyrev, Corrix, Kalyrio, Variket, Averan, Harbour, and Xovan. The creators of these rings remains a mystery, but the Rings themselves were found and named as such.

The remaining seven were as they are now, for the most part- climates and habitats much the same, unchanged after their construction. Except Corrix, which after the construction of Iridere was not as disconnected from the rest of the Rings.

The obvious odd Ring out is Variket.

Variket, the previous fifth Ring, was originally used as a massive laboratory in species diversity. It had a climate similar to that of Wenyrev, but far less oceanic coverage and more jungle. The Ring was slimmer than the other Rings, and most of its buildings and settlements were scientific bases and research compounds.

Scattered between the numerous research bases were a few civilian colonies. The sentient population of Variket, at its largest, is estimated to have been somewhere between 4.3 and 6.8 million creatures. The primary races that inhabited Variket were fyaeiarnae, nyphelim, and khavvichthi. The fyaeiarnae and nyphelim were partially amphibious, and Variket was somewhat similar to their homeworld. The high concentration of oxygen produced by the plants on Variket also appealed to the khavvichthi, who required it to survive, and the humidity was not a problem for them, as their home environment was quite similar to it.

Vikyrelle and humans found the climate disagreeable, too humid to properly live in, and in fact the humidity could cause debilitating feather rot in the vikyrelle and infections in humans. They chose not to spend the money to create encapsulated environments for members of their species to live in and stuck instead to the friendlier Rings.

For a while, the research done on Variket was mostly harmless, in-depth studies of things that had already been discovered and dealt with. This grew into less harmless work, step by step, tiny increase by tiny increase. A scientist would want to grow live cultures of a simple helpful bacterium, and when that worked fine, perhaps cultures of a less helpful one, and so on.

This, of course, did not end well, as we can all tell by the obvious lack of Variket’s existence.

One of the facilities on Variket experienced a massive power outage due to an animal infestation. While the power was down, the containment in one of their laboratories failed. The substance they were working with escaped containment and rapidly spread through the entire base. As the power was still down, no one had any way of knowing what was happening until it was far too late. By the time the power was restored to the base, the contaminant had spread through every room in every building of the compound and was working its way through the local forest.

Not much is known about what exactly the contaminant was. Reports from the time of the incident seem to indicate that it was some kind of partially intelligent fungus, capable of infecting flora and fauna alike and controlling them. The more fungal spores gathered together, the more intelligent they were- collective intelligence. The reports from the time were mostly written by frightened researchers and terrified civilians, and are to be viewed with the knowledge that these people were viewing the contaminant as a fast-spreading monster, a shapeless and faceless horror, taking over their lives more quickly than imaginable.

The contaminant was quickly referred to as a plague, although the term is not technically correct given that it was apparently a fungus and not a bacteria. Originally it was named after the base where it was released, but as it spread its name was quickly upgraded to include the entirety of the affected area, in this case: The Variket Plague.

In an environment where the fungus evolved, it was a simple matter to spread over the entirety of Variket in only a few months. Its effects on living beings seemed to vary greatly- some things it seemed to pass by entirely, leaving some bewildered fyaeiarnae and nyphelim completely unaffected, while some things it took control of, infecting their minds and turning them into clumsy servants and tools. Some creatures it drove mad, and still others it simply killed, violently growing inside of them until it choked their bloodstreams and blocked their airways. They would cough out spores before the fungus would spill out their mouths (or spiracles) and suffocate them, leaving their bodies husks while the fungus took any useful nutrients from them and left them.

This was understandably quite horrifying.

Even those who survived being infected were shunned, as no one knew if they were carrying fungal spores or not. Some were not- it didn’t matter. Some colonies and research bases quarantined themselves inside their bases, which worked until infected animals broke a window or shut down the air circulation systems.

Scientists worked to create a kind of cure for the fungus, or a fungicide, or anything to stop the spread of the plague, but could not do so before it destroyed their work. All Ring traffic was suspended in order to prevent the fungus from spreading to other Rings, although a few ships carrying spores made it out and had to be destroyed in flight so as not to spread the highly infectious plague to other rings.

It did not take long for the Iridere Police (IriPol), the group which K2S(Kalyrio Station Security) is part of, to rule Variket, the entire Ring, a biohazard. The Ring was quarantined and any attempts at escape were responded to without mercy. Any ships rising from the surface were shot down; any messages were intercepted and read through to make sure no one was planning on escaping. AIs were permitted to leave as long as they could upload themselves and no actual hardware was moved from Variket to elsewhere; this practice was stopped when ships picking up AIs touched the atmosphere of Variket and had to be completely decontaminated before arriving anywhere else in Iridere. Several ships were destroyed.

IriPol ordered everything shut down, and the only updates from Variket allowed were sensor readings from stations left running to determine how long it would take for the fungus to die out. Unfortunately, it seemed that even once the entirety of Variket was contaminated, the fungus did not die- it simply waited. IriPol declared the Ring a lost cause.

But as it was the fifth Ring, and right in the middle of the others, it was nearly impossible to keep it quarantined easily, and it cost endless time and resources to keep the fungus contained. IriPol conferred with those overseeing the star clusters around Rigel, and the galactic group of leaders that governed all inter-species and interstellar interactions and transit, and it was eventually decided that Variket was too dangerous to exist.

Preparations were made. IriPol scientists calculated, resources were gathered, and when Iridere’s Rings aligned to allow a free spot, IriPol and K2S used a series of explosives, acidic sprays, and high-powered laser beams to sever through the middle of Variket’s support, the only think keeping the Ring connected to the Core.

Variket was cut loose. Its momentum carried it away from the Core, free of collisions with any other Ring, and it was abandoned to deep space, to be torn away from the heat of the Core to freeze amongst the stars. It was not tracked after being cut loose.

After such a long time drifting, no doubt any form of life (including any fungal spores) has been killed by the cold and vacuum of space. However, no efforts have been made to locate or recover Variket.

As transmissions from Variket were shut down, and transmissions _to_ Variket were forbidden, no one left alive on Variket was informed of the decision to destroy the Ring.

[[ADDITIONAL MATERIALS:]]

**Item 1**: Several entries from the audio log of one of the scientists at Elias Base, where the fungus was originally released.

“Log entry 29: Power outage today. Some kind of… thing bit through the cables, which I thought was impossible, since we literally buried those six feet underground. Apparently we’re never safe. Although it did take a few months for them to break… [sigh] It feels weird in here since we got the electric turned back on. Something’s wrong with the air. I don’t like it- it feels kind of… almost kind of dusty, or dry. But that’s impossible. Maybe it’s a humidity issue… maybe something happened to the air circulation while the power was out. I’ll have to get the maintenance crew to take a look at it.”

“Log entry 32: The environmental controls are all fine. I don’t understand what’s wrong with the air! It almost hurts to breathe, and worse, nobody seems to believe me. Maybe it’s just me, or maybe I’m getting sick… I can’t be getting sick. Oh- [pause]. But- no, that’s impossible. Our containment… what if one of the lab containments failed during that power outage? [pause] [short laugh] No, it’s just me. There’s no way. I’m going nuts here… we’ve been here for too long. I need to go back to Averan.”

“Log entry 33: Something is wrong. [pause] [heavy breathing] Most of the others don’t believe me, but a few people are feeling it now. It’s not just me- something’s wrong with the air. I think I’m sick. I think- I know something is wrong.” [fumbling scraping sounds]

“Log entry 36: They locked me in my room! I told them it’s not me, I told them I can’t hurt them- [coughing] Ugh. Sticking me in here isn’t going to change anything! It’s in the air. [crashing sound] [thud] It’s in the air! [shattering noise] They won’t let me out. They won’t let me out! They shut off the air circulation to my room, they say I’m going to infect them… [pause] [whispered] It’s too late for them. They’re not going to be able to escape it. They’re already gone, aren’t they? Just like I will be. Just… like I will be. [silent pause] [slight cough] They shut off the air to my room. The fans aren’t running anymore, and it’s getting warm. [chirping of something through the window] I would… maybe I could break the window. Maybe I could get out. But what’s the point? I- [coughing] I can’t- [coughing] I’m going to die anyways. It’s in my lungs. I’m uploading these to whatever I can. Maybe I can warn- [coughing] We failed. We failed to-“ [coughing] [coughing] [coughing] [end of entry]

**Item 2**: Letters from one of the scientists at Elias Base to a relative.

“Dear Aska,  
We managed to get set up here on Variket. It’s beautiful here! You would love it. There are so many different colorful plants here. Maybe once we’ve set up all the way I can push for having a botany unit set up here.  
There are these little creatures that keep chewing on the power cables, though. We’re going to have to bury them. Not like that’s much of a problem- we were half prepared to do that anyway.  
I’m supposed to keep messages short, because right now it kind of costs a lot to send them all the way back to the main transmission point and onto the ships and such, but I’ll check in again soon!  
Love, Darkleaf.”

“My Aska,  
Sorry it’s been so long since my last letter! We’ve been really busy. Elias is one of the largest bases so far, and we have a lot going on here. We’ve been doing so much… They rejected the botany thing again, but a few of the guys here are working with plants and some of them even started doing some experiments on the fungi, so maybe if I bring it up in our next meeting I can get it through.  
We tried burying the power cables, but I guess those critters really like the taste or something because they keep digging them up. Fortunately we have a backup generator, because they won’t stop. We’ll have to bury them deeper.  
That’s all I can write now- I’m needed in the labs.  
Love, Darkleaf.”

“Dearest Aska,  
Wow, I should not have said anything about that backup generator! There was a huge storm which knocked the generator out, which we thought wouldn’t be a problem because we finally got those cables buried deep enough to stop being messed with, but something underground got one of them this time and we actually lost power for a while. That was an event! Obviously it’s back now, and we’re taking precautions to make sure we don’t lose it again, but that sure was something.  
Oh, good news! I got the botany unit pushed through. You should be getting a request for transfer soon- you can come to Variket! I know you’ll love it. I can’t wait to see you here!  
Love, Darkleaf.”

“Aska,  
Do not come to this place. I know I only sent you a letter a few days ago but something is very wrong and you have to stay away. A bunch of the crew here are acting really weird… I don’t know what’s wrong, but they seem sick. We may have had a containment breach somewhere when the power was out. I’m worried. Stay away.  
Love, Darkleaf.”

“Dear Aska,  
I heard you were getting on a ship to come here. Don’t! Cancel it. I don’t care how expensive it was; I’ll take care of it, and I’ll get you a new passage if this turns out to be a false alarm. But I think something’s gone wrong here, and you need to stay away until I know it’s safe. Promise me you’ll do this.  
Love, Darkleaf.”

“Aska:  
I’m glad you canceled your passage. I was right. You’ll be safe if you stay on Averan, my love; but I won’t be joining you there. I was right about the contaminant. Something got loose when we lost power, and it’s been circulating through the buildings for several days. It’s infected all of us- one of the fungal spore experiments. It took down a few of the scientists first. I was able to hear Raintap earlier- we locked him in his room hours ago to try and avoid being infected but I know it’s too late. He’s been quiet for a while now, and I’m going to check on him.  
Okay, I just went and looked. Aska, I’m scared. I’m really scared. Raintap is dead. I went and looked- I don’t want to tell you because it’s awful, but I know you would want to know because I know you. So I’m going to write this down, and maybe you can send this on to someone else and warn everyone not to come anywhere near Elias.  
Raintap is dead. He’s sitting against the wall of his room, and… well, it’s definitely fungus. It’s growing out of his mouth and nose. I could only see that from the window in the door but I don’t want to know what it did to his eyes. He’s all the wrong color, too. And he looks kind of puffy… gods, I hope the fungus doesn’t spread by blowing spores up into the atmosphere. I don’t want to be here. I wish I had never come here.  
This is the last you’ll hear from me, Aska, my love. I know I’ve been breathing in the same air as everyone else. I don’t know if I’m infected- I’m not feeling the same awfulness as everyone else here is, so I don’t know what’s happening- but I’m going to set fire to this base after I send this letter and probably stay inside. I don’t want to spread this. I don’t want anyone else to die like Raintap did. Oh, gods. I’m sorry, Aska. Know that I love you. Know that I wish none of this had happened, know that I am eternally grateful that you did not come here.  
Forever and always, Darkleaf.”

No further transmissions were sent or received. Elias Base burned down the same day the last message was sent out.

**Item 3:** A set of short anonymous descriptions of the spread of the fungus, written down at one of the last colonies to fall, Zynath Nera.

“Entry One: We’ve gotten word that some kind of contaminant is spreading into the forest around Elias Base. Elias burned down a few days ago. Something clearly has gotten loose. Also, someone’s personal logs were uploaded to the overnet, and I’m pretty sure they’re not fake. They describe some kind of horrible illness. I look forward to what happens.”  
“Entry Two: Another base has reported a few of their scientists exhibiting the symptoms mentioned in the uploaded logs- trouble breathing, slight delusions. A few more of their scientists have started acting very strangely as well.”  
“Entry Three: The second base- Ripple Compound- has dropped out of contact. All attempts to raise anyone there have failed. A few expeditions are headed out that way to see what’s happened. I’m curious.”  
“Entry Four: The teams came back. No one was alive at Ripple. A lot of the scientists had been killed by wild animals or other scientists, and a few by suicide. The remaining unaccounted for were found when someone found part of one of them sticking out from below a mound of fungus. Looks like those reports were right. These new findings have been uploaded to the overnet. I hope those teams wore masks.”  
“Entry Five: Three more research bases- all near Elias, and all ones that sent out research teams- have reported anomalies within their populations. Looks like some people didn’t wear masks. A shame. For them. Interesting for me.”  
“Entry Six: Those bases also went quiet. Teams are more hesitant about going out now.”  
“Entry Seven: A few teams went anyway, but didn’t even get to the bases before finding something new. The forest around the bases has started being off. A lot of the trees are covered in a strange fuzzy fungus, very similar to the one found in the bases. Could it be the same fungus? Infecting trees and people both? It sounds ridiculous. A superfungus of some kind. Not sure. This will require more study.”  
“Entry Eight: It’s definitely the same fungus. It seems to be able to almost control certain people and animals, because we have a reliable- if shaky video- of living, infected animals. Some kind of multilegged predator was killed after attacking some field researchers on camera. They kill it and slice it open in the video. Turns out it’s riddled with fungus inside. Not in the lungs though. Different from how it kills the researchers. Some of it’s up in the brain. Don’t know how that got there. That doesn’t make any sense. But then again if this is something that got loose at Elias it won’t be natural and doesn’t need to make sense in the ecosystem.”  
“Entry Nine: The fungus is definitely the cause of problems and it is spreading. I’ve included a map so far of its path. It seems to be spreading faster with each new set of reports I get in. Perhaps it’s paranoia. Perhaps fear. Perhaps truth. Will have to find out. Here is the map.” [Included in the notes was a map of Variket, with Elias Base (or the former site of) marked in red. Dots indicating report points for the fungus are color-coded with the date they were reported, and are spreading faster and faster from Elias Base, much as the writer indicated.]  
“Entry Ten: Colonies are starting to go dark. Ships aren’t allowed to leave Variket now. Outright quarantine. Zynath Nera has shut down its borders. Worried about fungus entering through people. I think it’s airborne, so that doesn’t matter. Scrubbing air with finest filters available within the buildings. Should be safe enough with those, but we won’t have enough to last for long. Hoping to book passage off Variket, but also I am thinking perhaps I should stay here and see what happens. Interested but nervous.”  
“Entry Eleven: Fungus is spreading much faster than expected. Passage off Variket booked. I am in quarantine until I leave, to ensure that I do not spread the fungus. I am being watched every day to make sure I am not infected. Still studying the spread of the fungus. Six colonies went dark just today. Five yesterday. Colonies and bases both… It does not discriminate. There are still odd patterns in the amount of people who die. Some are left fine. Some seem immune to infection. Why is this? I would want to study it, but I also enjoy living. Someone else will have to be a martyr for science.”  
“Entry Twelve: I am leaving Variket tomorrow. Fungus dangerously close to Zynath Nera. Glad to be leaving… glad I didn’t go later. At this rate it should reach Zynath Nera in the next three days. Should manage to infiltrate the colony in the next two weeks, even with the highest security. Not good enough. Not enough filters. Too many people, too much strain. It won’t last. Glad to be going.”

The twelve entries were found left behind in a room, on an old datapad. The data indicated that they were copies of the original, so it’s likely the owner either forgot the copies or intended that they be found by someone. Zynath Nera was investigated by fully decked out biohazardous materials handlers and IDLH (Immediately Dangerous to Life and Health) atmosphere workers a few hours before Variket was to be cut loose. Their shuttle was however subtly sabotaged by IriPol; while they managed to upload a great many files to the overnet and to satellites overhead gathering data, they did not manage to leave Variket. A team of highly trained workers were lost that day.

**Item 4:** The final debate of the Sixty-Fourth Galactic Council that ended with the executive decision to destroy Variket’s Support (Transcript of the audio log).

Councilor One, Fyaeiarnae (C1): “This meeting has been brought to order for the purpose-“  
Councilor Two, Vikyrelle (C2): [interrupting] “We know why we’re here.”  
Councilor Three, Khavvichthi (C3): “Variket.”  
[a brief silence]  
C1: “…Yes, this is true. This is the most problematic situation in the galaxy right now, and we cannot afford to delay on our decision any longer. We must decide what to do about Variket.”  
Councilor Four, Human (C4): “The latest reports confirm our suspicions- the civilian lifestyle has all but completely broken down due to the plague.”  
C1: “Which is not a plague.”  
C4: [inclines her head towards C1] “True. But it’s a lot easier to discuss it-“  
Councilor Five, Nyphelim (C5): “No. The fungus.”  
C4: “…very well.”  
C2: “You all know what my opinion on this matter is. I needn’t say any more.”  
C3: [furious clicking before the translation] “But your opinion is unsullied by danger towards your own people. You have no members of your species on Variket’s surface. No vikyrelle are in danger of being killed should we take action today.”  
C2: “Are you accusing me of-“  
C1: “Stop! Both of you.”  
[another brief silence]  
C1: “We have gathered representatives from every Ring of Iridere and the three heads of the Iridere Police force. With all of these viewpoints, we will make a decision.”  
C4: “We have a representative from Variket?” [C4 seems very worried.] “How?”  
C1: “In order to have at least some viewpoint from Variket, we have allowed several of the AIs that have been saved from Variket to band together and form one AI, which will be representing Variket in today’s meeting.”  
Variket Rep (VR): “Greetings.”  
C4: “Are you sure…?”  
C1: “Quite.” [A pause.]   
C3: “As we know, Variket’s entirety is now infected with a rapidly spreading genetically modified form of a deadly fungus. The spores can survive limited exposure to deep space, and are capable of spreading from one Ring to another should the atmospheres touch, as the spores are airborne and can be inhaled easily by all living creatures and most plants. Nothing so far - except certain seemingly randomly chosen creatures – is immune to this fungus, and it has no natural controls.”  
[a pause]  
Wenyrev Rep (WR): “…is this true?”  
VR: [from the small glowing module where it is housed] “Yes. This is true. I am unaffected by the fungus, as I am not organic, but I have many details as to what it does to living creatures, and I have a fair amount of data concerning exactly how the fungus spreads.” [a pause] “It is not safe.”  
Corrix Rep (CR): “What are our options? We can’t let this fungus spread to the other Rings.”  
WR: “It would flourish on Wenyrev… the climate is very similar to Variket’s. We’d be wiped out entirely there! I don’t want to have to evacuate the entire Ring.”  
Xovan Rep (XR): “Would there be a chance we’d have to evacuate the entirety of Iridere if this fungus got loose? Even Xovan?”  
C3: “Yes.”  
[another silence]  
C3: “The fungus would likely die in the cold and windy atmosphere of Xovan, but given how it has been adapting to its environment a few resilient spores would manage to survive and evolve to deal with the cold and the constant storms. No doubt even Xovan would fall prey to this infection eventually.”  
Harbour Rep (HR): “I’ll assume it can go aquatic?”  
C3: “There is where you are wrong, actually.” [a pause; faint typing can be heard from the khavvichthi councilor] “The fungus drowns quite easily. It is possible that the undersea life of Harbour would be entirely unaffected, unless the fungus evolves to infect the water as well. Unfortunately colonies of air-breathing creatures would need to bring air down into anything below the water, which would nullify the safety of being underwater in the first place. Hiding below the oceans is not a viable response strategy.”  
C2: “So we have several options.”  
Ferolus Rep (FR): “Which are? I don’t want our trade being destroyed by fungus on the ships that have to get past Variket to get to Ferolus.”  
C1: “We can continue to quarantine Variket, hoping that the fungus will die out.”  
C5: “We’ve been trying this, but it’s been several months and the fungus has shown no signs of decline. Its rapid and violent takeover of the ecosystem seems to have slowed or stopped entirely and is no longer a factor.”  
C4: “Meaning, of course, that it’s stabilized and isn’t going to die out any time soon.”  
Kalyrio Rep (KR): “Exactly how much would this affect Kalyrio if it got loose on the fourth Ring?”  
C4: [rather sharply] “Highly. The fungal spores vary in size, but are generally small enough to pass through most filters. You would not be safe if you took no action.”  
[no response from the chastised KR]  
C1: “Our second option is to purge the entire Ring and hope that it kills all of the spores. This would require literally burning every living thing and sweeping the atmosphere clean of spores, completely.”  
VR: “This seems impossible due to air circulation.”  
C1: “Our third option is to dose the Ring with radiation in the hopes that it will kill everything.”  
VR: “Impossible. It is statistically likely that a quarter of the spores would resist radiation to a certain degree, and that an undetermined amount of spores would be swept in and out of irradiated areas too quickly to be killed.”  
C1: “Our fourth option is the reason we must decide quickly. The Rings are aligning; if we act quickly, it is possible to sever Variket’s support and remove the Ring from Iridere.”  
[a long silence and some unintelligible muttering amongst the representatives and audience]  
C2: “I advocate this option.”  
C3: “Because none of your species are at risk.”  
C2: “They’re not doomed, no, but they are still at risk.”  
C1: “I am also not comfortable with this option.”  
Averan Rep (AR): [coughs] “This would be to kill all of the spores on Variket. What of the people there?”  
C1: “Therein lies the problem of this option.”  
Iridere Police Chief 1 (IriPol 1): [muttering] “More than just a problem.”  
C3: “We possess the resources and capabilities to destroy the Fifth Ring; but we cannot save the lives that will be lost there.”  
C1: [translating] “We will not be able to save them. We may not even be able to notify them with the total block on communications. The Rings will be aligned perfectly to allow this option to work in seventeen Iridere-standard days- we must act quickly.”  
Iridere Police Chief 2 (IriPol 2): “It’s not a tactical issue. It’s an ethical issue. Is it right to kill all these people?”  
VR: “Ninety-eight percent of the scientists and civilians on Variket are infected with the fungus. Of those, eighty-five percent will die in the next seventeen Iridere-standard days. The few left alive will not live lives worth living.”  
HR: “And what gives you the right to decide that?”  
VR: “Experience.”  
HR: “You’re not organic. What experience can you be talking about?”  
VR: [sharply, for a synthetic voice] “I am an intelligent being. I have the same feelings and understandings as you, albeit faster.”  
HR: “Excuse-“  
WR: “Is the risk worth the cost? I think so.”  
C3: “I do not agree. It is not worth it to abandon helpless and unknowing beings to a cold, slow death in space.”  
C2: “It is worth it in order to save the lives of countless others!”  
C3: “You are willing to condemn these unknowing?”  
C2: “Yes!”  
[a wave of whispers sweeps through council members, representatives, and audience alike. They escalate into chattering and even a bit of raised voices]  
C1: “Enough!”  
[silence slowly falls]  
C1: “We will put it to a vote.”  
C2: “Very well. I trust you will all see the sense in the actions we must take.”  
C3: “I agree to a vote. I trust that you will all see the worth in not becoming as monstrous as the plague itself in your willingness to take lives.”  
C1: “We will begin with the representatives.”  
FR: “I vote to destroy the fungus on Variket’s surface.”  
WR: “I vote to destroy Variket’s support.”  
CR: “I vote to destroy Variket’s support. It is the only sure way of killing the fungus.”  
KR: “I vote to wait and see if the fungus will die out.”  
VR: “I vote to destroy Variket’s support.”  
[The AI’s vote sends whispers through the audience again]  
AR: “I vote to cleanse Variket of life and reseed it once the fungus has been purged.”  
HR: “I vote to wait and see if the fungus will die.”  
XR: “I vote to burn the fungus from Variket and cleanse the Ring.”  
C1: [a slight pause] “…very well, the votes have been recorded. We continue with the councilors. I vote that we destroy Variket’s support.”  
C2: “I vote that we destroy Variket’s support.”  
C3: “I vote that we wait and see if the fungus will die.”  
C4: “I vote that burn the fungus from Variket.”  
C5: “I vote that we wait and see if the fungus will die.”  
C1: “And the vote of the Iridere Police chiefs?”  
IriPol 1: “I vote that we burn the fungus off Variket, and anything else there, too.”  
IriPol 2: “I vote that we destroy Variket’s support.”  
IriPol 3: “I vote that we wait and see if the fungus will die.”  
[C1 tallies the answers]  
C1: “There is a clear decision to be made here. With a vote of six to five to five, we have made a decision to burn through Variket’s support and cut the Ring loose from the rest of Iridere.”  
[uproar in the audience. C2 hangs their head and shakes it sadly]  
C1: [shouting over the noise] “Our decision has been made! Preparations begin now.”

Addendum: True to their word, IriPol commenced an operation seventeen Iridere-standard days later. It consisted of using several different substances and methods to slice, burn, and hack their way through Variket’s support, eventually separating it entirely from the rest of Iridere. The loose Ring drifted away from the rest of Iridere and vanished from the known galaxy.


	22. Conquering King: Unstable Rule

Micah listened to the crickets.

Just over seven months. He’d been king for seven months.

It was… well, it _had_ been going well. Up until recently. Micah’s rule was stable- he was keeping well, his family was healthy, his people loved him. Except not anymore.

There were foul things spreading. A few minor sicknesses were sweeping through some of the outer cities, near the Haunted Cities- Micah had made sure that sick people were quarantined, and that doctors were trying to help them. But it was still a problem. No major plagues- just minor illnesses that made daily activities more problematic. The people weren’t pleased with this, and these sicknesses were only occurring in the areas around the Haunted Cities.

Furthermore, the demons that had caused the fog to rise up from Seacliff were making more appearances. Some of the sickened cities had reported hearing strange sounds in the night sky, dark shapes that blocked out the stars, darkening the moon, bringing illness upon the people. There were quite a few rumors that Micah’s investigations of the Haunted Cities were causing these problems.

The investigations were going… slowly. They hadn’t progressed very far into any of the Cities, as they kept encountering the same kinds of strange magical barriers that Micah had found in Blackstone. Nothing they knew of could pass through the barriers or change them. Micah had tried shooting arrows and stones through them, and realized that the projectiles vanished completely when they went through. Clearly there was some powerful force at work.

He worried that God was protecting the innards of the Haunted Cities, keeping Micah and his people from them. But if God was sending down magical barriers, if He was allowing demons to plague Micah’s people, why had he not struck Micah himself down? Micah’s blessings still held, as they always would- weapons did not hurt him. He continued to practice swordplay and combat skills every day, and any stray strikes that managed to bypass his defenses swept away from him, their owners’ grasps being twisted in the opposite direction.

So it was not God preventing the exploration; it was something else.

Micah was firmly convinced that the demons were doing this. And he was determined to defeat them. He had never been beaten in combat, did not face defeat from an enemy in life. He would not let this obstacle be insurmountable.

But he was also slightly worried about Aesila.

She was, after all, carrying a child, and he was worried that if she was struck with illness she could become hurt or even die, stressed as she was. He understood that she had never undergone such an ordeal before- he was in absolute awe of her ability to function even when in such discomfort and under such duress. She refused to be treated like a weak creature, but she accepted help when she needed it.

Everything would change if she became ill. Micah couldn’t let that happen. He wouldn’t allow himself to be defeated, but if any harm came to Aesila, he would give up.

Additionally, someone had tried to poison him.

He was shocked. There’d been almost no reason for it- it was a drastic action against him for no particular reason, completely uncalled for. He’d been able to sense it in time- it’d been something dissolved into wine at dinner, and he’d drunk part of it before realizing something was wrong. By that time his throat had closed up and he was suffocating, but Julis vanished somewhere and brought back something that he forced Micah to swallow. Whatever it was- Julis refused to tell him- helped him breathe again, although by that time he’d fallen unconscious, unable to breathe. Chaos.

He’d woken up in a dark room with Aesila sitting near him, whispering under her breath- praying, most likely. She noticed instantly when he stirred and cried out, attracting the attention of several guards and servants outside the door.

Clearly, Julis was a wizard.

Micah knew this because, when he’d hunted down the assassin- a recently hired palace servant- his interrogators brought back the information that not only had his drink been poisoned, but Julis’ had been as well. But Julis had been unaffected. Micah searched for a connection between the two, but there was nothing there.

Julis rejected the assumption. He’d dismissed the subject and told Micah to, in the future, avoid being killed.

Micah certainly was tempting fate. He’d adopted some new practices, causing no end of trouble for his guards. One of these practices was randomly dressing in lower noble or merchant outfits and wandering around the lower reaches of his city with a few disguised guards to really understand his people. He always wore his medallion, and his sword, though having a sword was not uncommon. Sometimes he was recognized. Often he was not.

This particular night he chose to explore the Lantern District, a beautiful but strained area of the city, lit by colored lanterns strung of the streets at night and inhabited mostly by merchants.

As Micah walked, he caught sight of a woman sweeping the front of her store. The front window, which should have been a broad panel of glass, appeared to be missing. The woman glanced up, saw Micah, and looked down again, frowning and shaking her head.

Curious, Micah diverted his course and ambled over to her doorway.

“We’re closed,” the woman called, glaring at him.

“My good woman,” Micah began. “You seem harried. Why?”

“I wouldn’t expect you to understand. Go away.”

Micah thought about this. “I can’t understand if no one tells me anything.”

The woman glared at him for a few more seconds, sweeping the same spot on the floor angrily. Finally she narrowed her eyes and said, “Who are you?”

“My name is Behrin,” Micah told her.

“Nice.”

“Clearly you’re angry at someone,” he tried again, wondering what could have caused her to be so annoyed and what had apparently removed the front window of her shop. “You’re angry at someone, who I am similar enough to that I can be a target. What happened?”

“The problem is one of your noble friends,” the woman snapped. “I refused to give him a discount. He sent a few of his- servants to threaten me, and they damaged my storefront.” She gestured at the open rectangle in the wall. Below it lay a glittering coating of glass shards and shimmering powder. “I haven’t the money to commission a new sheet of glass! And it’s going to take hours to clean up this mess.”

“When did this happen?”

“An hour ago.”

“Who do these men work for?”

“Can’t say,” the woman muttered. “Don’t want any more trouble here. Go away.”

“I give you my word that I am not going to cause you any further trouble,” Micah said patiently.

The woman stabbed at the floor with the broom, muttering under her breath. “Not going to work…”

Micah said nothing.

“Lord Ryllan Gaffney,” she said after a moment.

Micah paused for a moment, memorizing the name. Then he turned and unclasped his cloak. He handed it to one of his guards, then unbuckled his sword belt and handed that over as well. “Anything I can do to assist you, I will do,” he offered. “Do you have another broom?”

The woman stared at him. “Who did you say you were again?”

“A friend,” Micah said, dodging the question.

The woman warily handed over another broom that had been standing in a corner. Micah took it and began to help sweep up the shattered glass littering the floor. He knew his guards were astonished by this- the old king never would have set foot in the lower cities. Yet another thing he’d done wrong, Micah thought, recalling several interesting situations he’d encountered over the last few days. Fortunately, he hadn’t been forced to kill anyone yet. Which was fantastic.

For a while, Micah talked to the shopkeep, whose name was Irma Korbach. Together they managed to collect the broken glass, and Micah made sure to leave no pieces where anyone could step on them.

He was leaning on the doorframe, one boot up on the steps, arms folded, while Irma stood just inside. He was asking questions about Ryllan when a courier- one of his royal couriers, in full official dress- came running up and shouted something. Micah closed his eyes and sighed.

“Your Majesty-“

“I apologize, but you must excuse me for a moment,” he said to a confused Irma. He turned and walked over, calming the agitated courier. “What is it?”

“Your Majesty,” the courier gasped, kneeling and rapidly standing again. “There’s been an attempt-“

Micah’s heart seized. He reached the conclusion before the courier had finished speaking: Julis impossible to kill, Ringleaders too well-armed, Micah out of the palace… “Aesila,” he whispered.

“-to take the life of Her Royal Majesty-“

“Is she alright?”

“I don’t know, my lord.”

“My sword!” Micah held out his hand; his sword belt was put into it. He buckled it on, then remembered his manners as he swept his cloak on. He turned and hurried up the shop steps, clasping his cloak around his neck. “My deepest apologies, but I must go,” he told Irma. “Ah- something has happened.”

“’Course, and we were having such a nice time,” Irma sighed.

“I am… _truly_ sorry, but someone has tried to kill my wife.”

“Your w-? Why would-“

“Your Majesty,” called one of his guards. “Are we returning to the palace?”

“Your Majesty?” Irma gaped, putting two and two together. “The king?”

“Yes,” Micah nodded to her, running out of patience and turning away. “I need someone’s horse!”

“Take mine,” three of the guards said at once. Micah chose the horse he knew to be fastest.

“Thank you,” he told the guard, who bowed to him.

“I met the king,” Irma realized, in the doorway. “He swept my floor! The king swept my shop floor. The real actual king!”

Micah nudged the horse, flicking the reins. “Hyah!”

The horse surged forward. Micah leaned close to its neck, directing it through the narrow city streets, praying that Aesila was okay.

The palace was in an uproar. Micah guided the horse in through the main gates, silently apologizing to the gasping beast. He dismounted and hurried in through the stables entrance, handing the horse over to a confused but obedient guard who happened to be in the area. “Take it to the stables. Where is the queen?”

The guard didn’t know. Micah swept up into the palace, one hand on his sword. “Where is the queen? _Where is my wife?_” he shouted, even more frightened now.

“Upstairs, in your chambers,” someone finally told him. Micah hastened up the stairs. Was she alright? Was she dead? Why didn’t anybody have a definitive answer for him? An attempt, the courier had said. If Aesila was dead, he would have said so. But he also said he wasn’t sure… surely someone would have told Micah of her passing when he entered if she had died?

He ran full tilt down the hallways, reaching their chambers, and pushed past a few guards standing watch and into the room-

The first thing he noticed was the smell of blood. Then he _saw_ the blood, spattered on the carpet and the hearth. Then he saw Aesila, slumped over in one of the chairs. He rushed over and knelt beside it, almost frantic. “Aesila-“

“I… am alright,” she murmured, stirring. “I am fine.”

“Are you sure?”

She nodded. “Wounded, but not deeply.”

“What?” Immediately Micah thought of poison, vital organs, blood veins. “Where?”

“My side.” Aesila indicated a rip in the fabric of her dress just below her ribs; some kind of weapon had sliced through to her skin. It wasn’t large, but it was worrying.

“I’ll fetch Julis,” Micah offered.

“It wasn’t poisoned,” Aesila said, reading his mind. “The dagger was mine.”

“What?”

“Two assassins,” Aesila explained. “One is dead.”

Only then did Micah notice the dead man in the room, throat intact but a dagger buried in his ribs up to the hilt.

“That was you?”

“Yes.”

Micah felt a surge of pride. That was not one of the defenses he had taught her- she was more competent than even he knew. That was to be expected of her. “Tell me what happened.”

“They were here when I entered. I didn’t notice at first- they were still. One attacked me as soon as I was away from the door… they seemed surprised that I could react as quickly as I did. The first one did not expect me to be capable.” She glanced over at the dead man. “My dagger was out of reach… I disarmed him and took his weapon. He came after me and I killed him his own weapon. The other assassin took my dagger- I recognized it- and she tried to stab me with it.” She paused, staring up at Micah.

“…she only partially succeeded,” Micah said after a moment.

“Micah, she was not trying to kill me.”

“I don’t understand.”

“She was trying to kill our child.”

Hence the location of the wound. Micah ran a hand through his hair, confused and worried. “Why… what could anyone possibly have against an unborn child?”

“Even if they are supporters of my father’s regime… it is my child. Why would they want to kill it, and me with it?” She shook her head.

“What happened to the other assassin?”

“She escaped. After she cut me I had to fight her off with what materials I could find.” Wearily she indicated an antique saber lying on the floor.

Micah stared at it. “You know how to fight with a saber?”

“Not very well.”

“There is more to you than I ever could have imagined,” Micah murmured. He’d found the saber mounted in another room and asked Aesila about it; it had been her great-grandmother’s. He’d put it in the corner intending to mount it on the wall and forgotten it. Somehow Aesila had grabbed it, wrenched it free of its mounting, and used it to defend herself. “You are incredible,” Micah told her, awed.

“A queen can’t be any less.” She smiled, clearly exhausted. “The assassin escaped out the door. She gave up. Incompetent. As far as I know she didn’t manage to leave the palace.”

“That would explain the guards tearing the flagstones up,” Micah murmured. “You think she’s still here?”

“I… do,” Aesila said carefully. “They were inexperienced, amateurs. She isn’t going to stay and do her job. She’ll flee. She will probably try to take a horse.”

“Do you want me to find her?”

“The guards can keep watch now. Go find her. Find out who sent her.” She paused, eyes glittering darkly. “Find out who wanted to kill my child.”

Micah stood, feeling his tamped-down fear melt into a slow, deep anger. “I will,” he promised, normally pleasant voice dropping into a low growl. “Believe me.”

Aesila nodded to him. He turned and strode out the door.

“If you find the assassin in the palace, save her for me to deal with,” he told one of his guards under his breath. “She… will be useful.”

“Yes, Your Majesty,” the guard replied, slightly nervous.

Micah swept away. He found the captain of the guard and organized a proper search, with all exits guarded and the palace grounds surrounded.

They didn’t find her. The search was mostly a setup to drive her where Micah knew he could catch her. Where Aesila had told him she would be- the stables.

The assassin was, apparently, not suspicious of the already-saddled horses and deserted stable. She opened a stall and commandeered a mount, turning it out of the stall and heading for the open door at the end of the stables-

Mjoll prowled into the opening, Micah seated on her back. “Really,” he sighed. “You can’t expect this to end well.”

The assassin pulled back on the horse, obviously startled. She said nothing.

“Surrender.”

The assassin was utterly still for a moment. Suddenly she spurred the horse forward, racing directly at Micah. He did not move.

The horse went sideways; the girl went up. She leaped from the saddle and over Micah’s head, close enough to touch him. Something whispered past his neck. A knife? Micah put a hand up, but there was no pain or blood. He wasn’t hurt.

The girl twisted as she flew, landing on her feet and stumbling. The horse circled back and she caught it and swung up, then turned to face Micah.

“We are _so_ far ahead of you,” she sneered, and held up something in one hand. Micah narrowed his eyes, peering at the object-

Micah’s medallion.

She’d managed to slice the leather cord that held the medallion around his neck and take it without him realizing. How…?

“Enjoy a mortal life.” She turned the horse. Micah spurred Mjoll forward a bit, but her steps were uneven and she had to twist first, throwing him slightly off-balance. Something whistled out of the darkness and… did not skid off his blessing.

What?!

It was a crossbow bolt, and it thunked solidly into the fleshy part of his left shoulder. He reeled backwards, but pushed Mjoll on.

Micah gasped in pain, but kept moving, transferring Mjoll’s reins to his left hand and drawing his sword with his right. “Catch her,” he whispered to Mjoll, through gritted teeth. She leaped to obey, lengthening her stride.

The assassin laughed out loud, holding the medallion up. Micah flicked the reins a bit. Mjoll’s silent paws caught up to the horse.

Its rider didn’t even notice until Micah lunged forwards and lashed out with his sword, catching the horse’s leg in the back, where the tendon was. The horse immediately staggered violently and half-fell.

By this time, they’d curved halfway around the palace, out of sight of most guards and nearly all the lights. Micah could feel blood flowing around the bolt in his shoulder and staining his clothes. He tried to ignore it.

The horse stumbled again. Micah recovered and made another stab at the horse, this time managing to slice open a shallow gouge in the beast’s side. It screamed and shied sideways. Mjoll, excited by the smell of blood, pushed herself to the limit and leaped forwards, raking her claws across the horse’s flank. It went down; so did its rider, Mjoll, and Micah.

Mjoll skidded on the stones, and Micah lost his grip on the saddle and fell. He tumbled across the ground, each movement sending a stab of agony through his shoulder. The horse screamed again before Mjoll mercifully ripped its throat out.

It took Micah a moment to rise from his place on the ground, but the assassin wasn’t going anywhere. The horse had fallen on her and she was trapped. Micah dragged himself up into a standing position and slowly made his way over to the girl.

She was perfectly still, obviously terrified of Mjoll’s massive jaws very close to her.

Micah took his sword and leaned heavily on it, then reached down and tried to take his medallion. The assassin held tight to it. and he stood, staring impassively down at her. She glared back. Defiant, even when trapped underneath a dead horse and a hungry lioness.

Totally calm, Micah took his sword and skewered her through the hand. She cried out and Micah picked up his medallion. There was some blood on it, but he rubbed it off on an unstained part of his outfit. “Thank you,” he said, inspecting it. The leather cord was indeed cut neatly. “I lost this. I appreciate having it back.”

The girl whimpered. Micah leaned on his sword again, almost conversationally, and drove it deeper into her hand. “Who sent you?”

She said nothing.

“Look,” Micah sighed. “You can tell me. Or you can refuse to tell me. I don’t need to explain which of the two pathways will be more painful for you. You seem smart enough to understand.”

“I can’t say,” the girl gasped. “Stay away from the Haunted Cities.”

Micah withdrew his sword and casually flicked the tip across her face, opening a thin gash across her cheek. “Who shot me?”

“A partner!”

“I would like a name.”

“No.”

Micah sighed again. “Before I was king I was a traitor. Do you think I have never tortured anyone?” He knelt, trying desperately to ignore the crossbow bolt, and used his fingers to tip the girl’s chin up slightly. “I have. And I was always told what I needed to know. Now. Who is your partner? Who is the dead man in my chambers? Why did you try to kill my wife?”

He got names for the dead man and the one who had shot him. The only reason given for the attempt, however, was “You can’t continue.”

She wouldn’t tell him why. Eventually he gave up and killed her, then left her and the horse where they were. He’d get the guards to handle it.

He wearily climbed up onto Mjoll’s back and directed her towards the stables. By this time, his head was swimming and he wasn’t sure how long he could stay conscious for. It had been so long since he had been wounded; he didn’t have such tolerance for pain anymore. He reached the stables and found that it was still mostly deserted. There were a few guards. The second he spotted them, he paused and snapped the crossbow bolt in two, leaving the head in his shoulder. He tossed the other half away, into the dark. There, at least it was a little less obvious now. He nudged Mjoll forwards again.

The guards saw his approach and sprang to action, hurrying towards him. “No,” Micah snapped to them, as they went to take Mjoll’s reins. “I will take care of my mount.”

“My lord?”

“Find Julis, and bring him here. Immediately!”

They scattered, each heading in a different direction in search of the wizard. Micah dismounted and stumbled against the lioness’ side, leaning heavily on her for a second. He recovered after a moment and began to lead her towards her stall.

Julis showed up in what had to be record time. “My lord,” he said, and started as soon as he saw the blood drenching Micah’s clothes. He came closer, and spotted the splintered end of the bolt. “You- ah-“

“No one can know,” Micah hissed. “No one.” He pulled the medallion out of his pocket. “The assassin took it from me. This must not happen again.”

“O-of course,” Julis stammered, still staring. “But, ah…“

“I want this wound fixed as quickly as possible. Get someone to stable Mjoll and someone who can be trusted to say _nothing_ to get this bolt out of my shoulder.” He paused. “Also, perhaps send a few guards to clean up what’s left of the horse over by the western wing.”

“My lord?!”

Micah only shook his head.

Julis helped him in and delayed enough guards to prevent any from seeing Micah wounded. Micah was grateful for this.

His medallion was his protection. It was clear to him now that his blessing was his medallion- not him. If it was taken away, he could be captured, wounded, or killed like any other being. He’d be worthless. He could still fight, and he was extremely good at fighting, but without the blessing of the medallion… any stray blow could kill him.

Any blow. Any arrow from afar. Any amateur sword strike lucky enough to slip past his guard. Any dagger thrust or thrown at him.

It wasn’t him. He wasn’t blessed. He wasn’t chosen. It was just the medallion. Somehow, he’d been lucky enough to always have it, always trust that it was his own abilities that made him strong, that it was the will of the divine being who watched over them all.

But it really wasn’t.

No one could be allowed to know that without the medallion, he was vulnerable. He would entrust the secret to Julis and Aesila and no one else.

His life depended on it.

-

RECORDED TRANSMISSION FROM KHARAVANI PORT TO K2S SUBSET CORRIX WATCH ORBITAL STATION

Kharavani Port (KP): Port to Station.

Corrix Orbital Station (COS): Station here.

KP: About that king.

COS: Oh, no.

KP: We researched him and found he’s got some kind of advantage that prevents him from being dealt with like normal people. It’s… he’s got some kind of shielding device.

COS: What? How? Did someone leak technology out?

KP: No, we don’t think so. We think he picked it up out of a ruin somewhere a while back and he’s been using it ever since. It seems to be a kind of prototype kinetics generator.

COS: And he doesn’t know what it is?

KP: Right. We tried to remove it from the situation- to help it develop normally, we’d take our influence away.

COS: Right, of course. So what went wrong?

KP: Why do you automatically assume that something went wrong?

COS: Call it a hunch.

KP: Thanks for the vote of confidence.

COS: So what happened?

KP: We sent in a few operatives to get it, natives from Fenreav in the mountains.

COS: Are they trained?

KP: Well, they were trained.

COS: Oh.

KP: Two of them went in to try and find the generator in the king’s quarters. The queen showed up-

COS: Oh… oh no.

KP: It, ah… it didn’t end well.

COS: What did you do to the political dynamic? Who’s going to succeed her and the king?

KP: What?

COS: I cannot believe you assassinated the current monarchy without permission. Of all the -

KP: Ah – wait, no, uh… that’s… not what happened.

COS:

COS: Do continue.

KP: She – the queen – she killed one of our operatives. The king killed the other. He got shot in the process, but he managed to get names and tracked down the third man. They’re all dead. The monarchs are fine. Slightly wounded, but alive. And he still has the generator.

COS: So you’re telling me it was a complete failure.

KP: …essentially, yes.

COS: We’re removing your act instigation authorization.

KP: What? We… alright, that’s reasonable.

COS: How is the passive deterrence going?

KP: The stories are spreading like wildfire. Along with those plagues we dropped.

COS: Just keep them small. No new ideas from you. You’ve already screwed up enough.

KP: We know. Those three weren’t our best operatives, but they had promise.

COS: Well, don’t do it again. Then you won’t lose anyone.

KP: Understood.

COS: Station out.


	23. Snowblind: Organic Hazards

“Hold on.”

Everyone stopped.

Arkane held up one hand while staring at their datapad with the other. It seemed…

“In about half a kilometer we’re going to have to cross over onto an ice bay,” Arkane said, heart sinking. “Which means… we’re going to have to split up.” The bay was perhaps two kilometers across at most, but just around ten kilometers long. Surprise, surprise- they were traveling the long distance.

“What?” Orca frowned. “Why?”

Casey covered his face with one hand. “Can’t we avoid the bay?”

“Not without an airlift or three weeks of extra time,” Arkane answered, shaking their head. “It’s the only way that takes us to Hallowtone that I can find. Everything else is impassible. There was a route through the mountains, but the database has it blocked by a rockfall and inaccessible.”

“We’re going to have no communications.”

“I know. Which is why I wish we didn’t have to do this. And, you know, because of the whales.”

“Excuse me,” Orca butted in. “Someone explain.”

“We have to travel over a bay,” Arkane started. “Which means that we have to be careful of whales.”

“Whales.”

“Yes.”

“Wait. Here?” Orca glanced to the west, over their intended path. From the top of the rise they were standing on, they could see that the path wound through several small rocky areas and suddenly leveled out on an even snow plain. “Whales?”

“Yes.” Arkane turned to look at the snow plain, which was in fact snow covering thick ice covering frigid water.

“Oh.”

Fanged battering whales were… a problem. Courier groups- which usually consisted of two or more stormrunners- had to be especially wary of them. They hunted by detecting shadows of creatures above- as well as things living below the ice- and smashing through the ice to claim their prey. A group of couriers produced an adequate shadow- whales would not hesitate to eat stormrunners, given the chance.

“We’ll have to split up. There’s no real way to stay in contact over the ice, so mostly it’s just a game of chance and we mark a destination to meet on the other side of the bay.”

“There’s got to be a better way to do this.”

Arkane shook their head. “We need to stay far enough apart that the vibrations and sound of us walking won’t seem like they’re coming from the same location.”

“And how far apart is that?”

Arkane checked their datapad. “Half a kilometer is recommended.”

“What?!” Orca nearly exploded. “What kind of freakish prey animal is half a kilometer long?”

Casey stared, confused. “I don’t think… I don’t think it means there’s something half a kilometer long. That doesn’t make any sense.”

“I think it’s just a safety margin,” Arkane told her. “No point in risking it.”

“But it’s so inconvenient!”

“So is being eaten by a whale.”

“…point taken,” Orca said after a moment.

Casey stepped in .”I can plot routes for all of us,” he said. “Since we won’t be able to talk to one another-“

(Where are we going next?) Hibernia hovered next to Arkane’s head.

“Hold on,” they told Casey. “The stormfliers.”

“What about them?”

“They can speak to each other, and to us.” Arkane indicated Hibernia. “We don’t have to walk out there deaf and mute.”

“Oh… well, of course!” Casey turned. “Zenith- yes, do you think you all would be willing to carry messages for us?””

(She’s excited,) Hibernia reported silently to Arkane. (This is what we were designed to do- carry messages! We get to prove ourselves.)

(You’ve already proved yourself, love,) Arkane told her silently. (But I’m glad you’re excited anyways.)

(We’re useful.)

(Yes.)

“They’ll do it,” Casey said unnecessarily. “But we’ll still need routes.”

“Of course.” Arkane paused, suddenly thinking. “Only…”

“Uh-oh,” went Orca.

“Unless we want to wait two hours, we’ll catch a storm out on the ice. If we go back we can make it to the nearest shelter with time to spare.”

“That’s an hour backwards!” Orca exclaimed, looking back the way they had come. “No way.”

“What?” Casey stared at her as if she’d grown a second head.

“The average blizzard times,” Orca said. “Our trips are always way shorter than the listed times. How long until the next blizzard?”

“Just over two hours,” Arkane told her.

“And how long will it take to get across the bay here?”

Arkane checked. “About two hours, twenty minutes…”

“And how much do we normally shorten our run times against the listed run times?”

“Ten to fifteen minutes- Orca, I see where you’re trying to go with this-“

“Then let’s move!”

Arkane sighed. “It’s too dangerous to do it that way, Orca. If we get snowblinded out on the ice we won’t be able to find each other or do anything other than sit in one spot and wait the snow out.”

“Would that be so bad?”

“Yes! If you so much as look the wrong way, you’ll lose your place on the ice and wander who knows where!”

“I think I’ll take my chances with the snow,” Orca snapped. “It’s better than letting Shadowside have another shot at us.”

Oh, right.

That.

They’d been on the run since Ceos, but Shadowside was catching up. Arkane was taking convoluted paths, trying to throw their pursuers off, but the stormfliers reported that the Shadowside ground teams- far behind- were closing the gap.

Arkane had no time to consider this. “Very well,” they decided after a moment. “If you really thing we can do this-“

“I do,” Orca said stubbornly. “As long as we get moving soon.”

“Casey, plot a few paths for us. Let’s go.”

Casey and Arkane drew up routes for everyone to take and shared them with Orca. Arkane bid them good luck, and the three split up and headed different ways.

Arkane, accompanied by Hibernia and Samath, took point and stepped out onto the ice. It was covered in a thin layer of snow, scoured away by the constant wind. Snowshoes were next to useless here. Arkane had taken the frames off and stowed them in their backpack; the soles of their boots were designed to provide traction on ice regardless. This included metal points that dug into the ice to prevent the wearer from slipping.

The sun glittered on the wastes. Arkane figured the ice was perhaps two meters thick in some places, just over one in others. Fairly solid, but still dangerous to walk on.

(You’re nervous,) Hibernia observed.

(Yes,) Arkane answered her.

(Why?)

(Because I can’t fly,) Arkane replied, somewhat irritably. (There are very large, very hungry predators underneath this ice that would eat me if they had the chance. I don’t want to be eaten, but if they come after me there’s not much I can do.)

(Oh,) said Hibernia.

(What kind of predators?) Samath asked.

Arkane explained the whales.

(They’d eat you?) Hibernia asked, astonished.

(Yes,) Arkane told her. (They eat anything small enough to fit into their mouths. Normally they eat things that live in the water with them- fish, squid, other whales, dead things- but since some of their prey can go on top of the ice, they’ve learned to smash through it and eat whatever falls off. Which is why I’m so scared.) They glanced down again. Below them, through the ice, the seabed dropped away, vanishing underneath meters of murky, blue-black waters. Frigid and still, except for the life that somehow whispered through those depths.

Far to their left, Arkane could see Orca making her way across the ice. They envied her- she was closest to the shore, and in least danger of being eaten by a whale, since the water there was shallow and it would be hard for a whale to get enough depth to power itself to the speed required to smash through the thick ice.

And then there was Casey, over to Arkane’s left. The bay was a circle cut out of the land almost, and Casey had a relatively safe route, the seabed beneath him rather shallow. There were two prongs of land that restricted access to the bay, and Casey was following near those. The only deep bit he had to walk over was the channel that cut through the land there and connected the bay to the ocean. That bay opening was located most of the way through their walk, and Arkane wasn’t unduly worried about it.

Arkane had what was by far the most dangerous path. And they were extremely nervous about it.

The walk was long and stressful. It was going to take two hours. The first hour and a half were completely uneventful.

The sun reflected up, dazzling Arkane’s eyes. They were grateful for the tinted goggles that let them see even on bright days like this. They also felt a bit sorry for Orca, who didn’t have any.

A stormflier came whirling over the ice; Zenith. Hibernia flew over to meet her and they conversed. Arkane couldn’t hear it; they weren’t being addressed.

Hibernia returned, Zenith floating in circles around her. (Zenith says Casey is worried about the ice around him being thin.)

(What’s it look like?)

A moment passed while Hibernia fetched a picture from Zenith and gave it to Arkane. The ice was white, but the blackness was clearly visible through it. Perhaps not even a meter thick. Arkane swallowed nervously. (Tell him to find thicker ice to walk on; if he falls through, he’s dead. We won’t be able to get to him.)

(Sure.) Hibernia told that to Zenith, who turned and jetted away towards the distant Casey. Arkane kept moving.

The walk was nerve-wracking, but uneventful. A horrific combination of completely unstimulating and still requiring full attention. Arkane wanted to move faster; run, jump, something. But if they did, they’d risk drawing attention from… unwanted denizens of the deep.

And nothing scared them more than the deep.

(Why are you scared of the water?) Hibernia asked.

(It’s endless. It’s totally dark.) Arkane worked and lived in a world of light; even the snowstorms were bright. The light of the Core reached far. (If I fell in there, nobody would ever find me. Ever.)

(Well, you won’t fall in,) Hibernia told them confidently. (The ice is too thick.)

(Not for whales to break.)

(There won’t be any whales,) Samath assured them, joining the conversation. (This is a small bay.)

(I know, but-)

Zenith shot over again, little wings fluttering madly. Hibernia circled her, exchanging information, then said, (Casey saw something.)

Oh, god, Arkane thought. (Give me the image.)

It wasn’t an image- it was a memory clip. Arkane actually had to stop moving to watch it in their head.

For a few brief seconds, they were Casey. He trudged across the frozen bay, muttering something to himself under his breath and staring down at the ice below his feet. It _was_ thin- Arkane could clearly see the water below the white layer. There were bubbles trapped in the ice. “Get off the thin ice,” Arkane whispered, mostly to themselves.

Casey kept moving, and then suddenly there was a flash of movement underneath the ice- a broad swath of gray coloring shot by, moving quickly, and it still took about seven seconds to go by completely. Casey made a strangled noise but managed to stay mostly silent.

Arkane’s throat felt tight. There was nothing else that could be other than a whale. “We really do not need this,” they whispered, letting the memory clip go. They didn’t have the concentration to talk mentally with their fliers. “Hibernia, tell Zenith to get Casey to land as soon as possible. He’s going to get eaten on ice that thin.”

Hibernia bobbed her assent and returned to Zenith.

“Samath, go speak with Epsilon. Tell him to take Orca closer to the shore, where it’ll be safer. It’s mountains over there, so the shore isn’t really shallow, but a whale won’t attack that close to the stone. I think. Powering into a rocky outcrop in the water would kill them for sure. So tell him to get her to safety.”

(Right away.)

(What about you?) Hibernia asked, returning to Arkane as Zenith zipped away again.

“I’m going to keep going,” Arkane muttered, staring ahead. “There’s no safer route to take than the one I’m on now.”

(It’s not safe.)

“I’m aware.” They paused, gathering their thoughts. Sound could trigger attacks. Anything could. Were they being irrational about what could draw the attention of the whale? Probably. But it was terrifying. (I’m aware. I think… it’s probably safest to just go as quickly as possible and get off the ice as soon as possible.)

(Just be careful,) Hibernia told them.

(I am trying.)

Hibernia whirled around their head, clearly nervous. Arkane swallowed again and tried to calm themselves, but there was a very dangerous predator hidden somewhere beneath them and it could and would kill them given the chance.

Their datapad beeped a bit. They were reaching their destination- perhaps fifteen or twenty more minutes and they’d reach the far shoreline.

I only have to last twenty minutes, Arkane thought to themselves. That’s it. Just twenty minutes.

Samath jetted back over. (Orca says she’s coming to help.)

“What? No!” Arkane looked left; Orca’s shape was now moving across the ice towards them. “No. Tell her to go back. If she gets close to me, we’ll have a far higher chance of attracting the whale.”

(I can’t really-)

“Please do something.” Arkane strained forwards- maybe they could make it to the shore by the time Orca reached them? Maybe Orca would be dissuaded-

(Epsilon says he will try.)

“Good.”

The wind picked up a bit. Arkane glanced down at the storm timer- they had about twenty minutes before the storm. They were really cutting it close on this bay. This was not optimal.

A faint vibration ran through the ice at Arkane’s feet. They froze, horrified. What?

The ice was too thick to see through. Arkane forced themselves to move again, to push towards the shore. The wind scraped more snow off the ice’s surface.

(She won’t go back.)

Arkane shook their head. Orca was not listening. There was nothing they could do about that, apparently, other than pray the whale didn’t notice them.

Orca didn’t even need to be near Arkane for trouble to spot them. Arkane heard her voice once she was close enough to shout.

“Arkane!”

No, thought Arkane, shaking their head.

“Are you-“

Distracted, Arkane slipped on a patch of uncovered ice, lost their footing, and fell with a thud. Their head hit the ice, though not hard.

(Arkane!)

“I’m fine,” they said, shaking their head dizzily. “I’m f-“

Movement below. Arkane could feel it, could _sense_ it.

This trip, apparently, was going to be a fulfillment of all their worst nightmares. Attempted murder, powerful enemies, little creatures to take care of, bears, and now this. Now whales.

The ice shattered.

Not into little pieces. Into huge floes, as a massive snout thrust its way through, blunt and gray and Arkane could _see_ the fangs poking out from that thing’s mouth. It pushed the ice apart and Arkane was glad they were lying down already, because they would have fallen.

But the ice was now sloshing about with the water underneath. Frightened, Arkane scrambled for the one ice pick they owned and found it; they buried the spike deep into the floe and held on for dear life.

Orca was evidently facing the same kind of issue- she was out of sight.

(_Arkane!_)

“Get up!” Arkane yelled desperately. “Up!”

The stormfliers obeyed, rising above the ice plain. The whale’s snout disappeared again, sinking below the ice, leaving a gaping hole in the plain where it had smashed through. Arkane eyed the dark, choppy waters with apprehension.

“I made a mistake,” Orca called.

I’m aware, Arkane thought.

The whale was gone. The water sloshed them and threatened to tip over Arkane’s floe multiple times. Luckily, the piece was large, and so far had avoided dumping its payload into the frozen bay.

It took a minute, but the whale appeared again, this time behind Arkane. More of the ice was smashed. More of it vanished; some chunks ended up sloshed on top of the other ice. Arkane was trying very hard not to panic.

The whale seemed to now be having trouble locating Arkane and Orca. Arkane glanced around, thinking desperately, and then realized that there was some solid ice sheeting not far off that if they could get to, they could use to run to the shore. But what about Orca?

(Hibernia, does Orca have any rope?)

A pause.

(No. But you do.)

Arkane frowned. (I do?)

(It’s on the side of your pack.) Hibernia swept down again and grabbed the rope in her mouth. (I can try and get it off-)

“Please do.”

She managed, and dumped the rope in front of Arkane. (What do you need it for?)

Arkane tied the end of it around their ice pick, looping it around the metal head and the handle to prevent it from slipping off. “I might need a few tries,” they muttered, regarding the pick. “Orca!”

She looked up. Arkane held onto the end of the rope, but swung the pick around a few times and threw it. It fell short of her ice floe. Arkane reeled it back in, too nervous to speak. They tried again, and this time it hit the edge of the floe and skittered of, falling into the water. Orca moved herself to a kneeling position on the ice, trying to keep her balance on her very small ice floe. Arkane threw it again.

This time it landed on the ice and Orca grabbed it before it could fall off. She dug the point into the ice and Arkane hauled on the rope, dragging her piece of ice towards theirs.

Once they were close enough, Arkane offered Orca a hand. She took it, and jumped over onto Arkane’s ice floe. Hers wobbled and went sideways. Arkane’s tipped dangerously.

Arkane recovered their ice pick from the floe and said, “We have to reach the unbroken ice.”

“Good luck to us,” Orca snorted. “You can’t throw that thing.”

“I know. Can you reach the sheet with this and get it in?”

“I can try.”

It took Orca five tries to get the pick to actually stick into the edge of the ice sheeting, but once it was in, it stuck. She’d coated the metal in water to try and get it to freeze and help hold the pick in place; it worked. She hauled on the rope and brought them over to the unbroken ice.

Arkane stepped off onto the sheet and breathed a sigh of relief. As long as the whale didn’t come back-

Where was the whale.

Orca got off the ice and recovered the pick. She glanced around and said, “Where’s the whale?”

The whale appeared. It poked its head above the water in the smashed-up section of the bay, searching for its prey in confusion. Its prey had gotten away.

“We’d better go,” Arkane said.

Another vibration scraped along the underside of the ice. Arkane had no idea what to think this time, and didn’t have time to formulate a conclusion before a set of massive jaws clamped onto the whale’s tail and the whale was twisted in the water. Arkane watched in astonishment as it was forcibly moved, turned, and as it rolled something curled around it. A massive, glittering form, silvery-blue-black scales on a sleek body. The head was long, almost reptilian-

“An ice wyrm,” Arkane breathed.

The top predator of Xovan’s oceans, ice wyrms were… rarely seen. They ate whales and other large creatures, but didn’t bother with things like fish or people. Humans were safe from them. But that whale wasn’t.

Arkane and Orca watched in awe as the ice wyrm curled itself completely around the whale and dragged it downwards, beneath the ice. Whales could hold their breaths for a long time- but ice wyrms could hold it even longer, as they could slow their body functions to not need to breathe for days. The whales, being warm-blooded, couldn’t do that. This wyrm would take the whale to the bottom of the bay and let its body hold the thing captive until it drowned.

“We’re being given a chance,” Arkane said.

“Okay, yeah, let’s go,” Orca agreed.

They turned and made for the shore. Arkane checked their storm watch and realized they were nearly out of time. “We need to find safety.”

They reached the shore as the storm hit. There was a massive boulder, tall and wide, that they could shelter behind, and they did try this. It wasn’t that bad as long as they stayed in one place.

The problem was Casey.

He was completely lost. Arkane and Orca had no idea where he was; and he couldn’t communicate with them-

(We will find him.)

The stormfliers were made to withstand the high winds and snow. Hibernia floated effortlessly near Arkane’s head, Samath just behind her. Epsilon was somewhere else.

(Can you do that?)

(Yes.)

(How?)

(We’ll find Zenith. She’ll be with him.) Hibernia bobbed up and down. (We’ll go now?)

(Yes. Please. Bring him here, if possible. If not, just make sure he’s safe. Take care of him. He’s part of my team, and I won’t let him be hurt.)

(Of course.) Hibernia whipped away, immediately lost in the wind and snow. Samath followed, coloring instantly making him invisible in the weather.

A few minutes later, Samath appeared again, out of the snow like a ghost. Behind him came Casey and Zenith, followed up by Hibernia.

(We found him,) Hibernia said happily. (Here he is!)

“Arkane?” Casey called hoarsely. “That you?”

“Yes,” Arkane yelled back, over the sound of the wind. “Over here. The wind isn’t so bad-“

The stormfliers bumped Casey until he stumbled into the sheltered area and sat down hard.

“I watched that happen,” he said, once he could see Orca and Arkane. “That whale and the ice wyrm. I’ve never seen an ice wyrm before!”

“Well, now you have,” Arkane commented dryly. “I hope never to see one again.”

“Are you guys alright?”

“Just peachy,” Orca snapped. “Didn’t almost get eaten by a whale. No big deal.”

Arkane was tempted to tell her that it was partially her fault, but figured that she probably knew and it wasn’t worth talking about. “We’re alright. That’s all that matters now. We made it across the bay.”

“No thanks to me,” Orca muttered.

So she did understand. Arkane did not answer that statement.

“Wait, what?” said Casey, confused. “What- did something happen that I don’t know about?”

“I fell on the ice. It attracted the whale,” Arkane explained.

“They fell because I was shouting at them,” Orca added. “Sorry, Arkane. I will try not to almost kill you again in the future.” She paused, and looked up to them, quieter. “I should have listened to you. And, uh, I didn’t, and I’m sorry. I – that could have gone a lot worse. And it would’ve been my fault if it had.”

“It didn’t,” Arkane said, genuinely touched. “But I appreciate it.”

They waited. The storm was a short one-only about twenty minutes more- and the sky cleared up immediately afterwards. Arkane glanced over at the place on the bay where the ice had been shattered. It was completely covered over- almost no sign of the conflict remained.

Sighing, they turned away. “Let’s keep moving,” they said wearily after a moment. “We still have a very long way to go.”


	24. Shadowside: Ferolus

Below the _Amaranthine_, Ferolus’ shadowside glittered. Lights from a small city settled on the rim of a canyon- a very unobtrusive city, nothing special about it.

Except the low-profile but high-budget research lab halfway dug into the rock walls of the canyon.

Morpho stared at the specs of the lab. Her infiltration team was already on their way in.

Shadowside… was a helpful organization. It was just helpful in ways people didn’t ordinarily realize. The infiltration team was going to copy all of the data in the small Ferolus lab, falsify some of the original data, and leave it as it had been. It was better for intense technological advancement to be controlled carefully by the best scientists Iridere had to offer.

So, Shadowside.

Morpho knew her teams could do more with the data than any little science base on Ferolus could. She wasn’t technically stealing the data- just copying it. The original would remain where it had been. Just… slightly altered.

The alterations weren’t large enough to cause problems. Just large enough to nullify any potential progress the researchers could have made.

Science was best handled by experts.

Morpho had experienced this firsthand. It was now commonplace could live to around two hundred, even without the kind of care and implants Morpho had, and Morpho had taken full advantage of the technology available. She was nearly one hundred eighty, and she understood why you couldn’t let advanced research be held up in official channels.

One hundred sixty years ago, a fungus had been released on Variket. Morpho had been there at the time- her parents worked in a research base there, studying the flora and fauna of the Ring. Morpho, a teenager at the time, caught on to their research quickly and helped.

Then a fungus had spread across the surface of the Ring, in a deadly plague that had wiped out settlement after settlement. Morpho’s parents had sent her off-Ring until the plague was dealt with, but not before she managed to copy their research down and take it with her.

She wanted to go back, but transportation was cut off. Her parents weren’t allowed to leave; she wasn’t allowed to go back.

Additionally, she had to stay away from customs. Her parents hadn’t exactly been truthful when reporting her exposure to the fungus; she’d encountered it personally more than once.

The fungus affected different people in different ways. Some, it killed. Some, it controlled. Some, it ignored completely.

Morpho seemed to be in the latter category. She’d been in several of the affected settlements and never faced any ill effects from the fungus. In fact… she almost seemed better than she used to be. Stronger, smarter, faster, hardier.

She wasn’t sure if it was possible for someone to be improved by the fungus. She didn’t want to assume anything. So she just stayed quiet about it.

Word spread; the galactic council of races was considering destroying Variket as a lost cause. Morpho started work again on the research her parents had been working on.

They could cure the fungus. It was developed in a lab, formulated from a natural species that already existed on Variket, and they could create a ‘cure’ for it in a lab as well. Morpho had limited resources and almost no one working with her- but she tried.

She got close. The data was useful, and what she could do was promising- she managed to create an altered strain of the fungus that overtook the original one and killed it, and didn’t do anything else. No controlling living beings, no reproduction. All she needed to do was figure out how to make it die.

But it was too late. Morpho petitioned to have her research funded, to have a chance to test it out on Variket’s surface, but the Council of Races had already decided that Variket was a lost cause. She was completely ignored.

The Council cut Variket loose a few weeks later. Morpho watched as the Ring’s support was destroyed, as the Ring itself slowly moved away from the rest of Iridere and out into space, turning from another silver band into a faint reminder of a life she used to have and finally into nothing.

It was a week and a half later that her lab produced a strain of the fungus that would die after taking over the original strain and leave the target completely clean.

Morpho didn’t test it on herself. If the fungus had indeed improved her, she wanted to keep it that way. She liked it. No, she’d tested it on a few… volunteers who had been infected with the original, aggressive strain of the fungus.

No one needed to know that she’d snuck that off Variket. There’d be a panic.

But it was far too late. Variket was gone, along with all the people on it. All of the people that the Council of Races had decided to let die because no one had listened to Morpho. She could have saved so many lives…. so many innocent people.

Official channels would never suffice. Morpho decided that it would be best to do things in the way she best saw fit.

She still had a strain of the original fungus around somewhere, locked safely in cryostasis until she needed it. She hoped she never would.

Morpho had been nearly twenty when Variket was killed. She’d started Shadowside a few years later, and was still in control of it now. Shadowside had begun when Morpho took over a small scientific lab and made it larger.

When it came time for her to take control of another group, she did so. It would be more useful for her to be powerful than for her to struggle with all of the common people she was doing this work for.

She knew she was smarter than them, more powerful. So she had to protect them.

So she had a team infiltrating a small facility in a canyon on the shadowed side of Ferolus to seize some information and make sure Shadowside was the ones that got it.

And she had other plans in the working.

There were a group of stormrunners on Xovan who had stolen some tech she needed- a few prototypes in communications. Xovan wasn’t ready for a technological advancement like the one that was available to them, and Shadowside needed to recover the tech.

Additionally, they had plans to capture a… base. Of sorts.

The plans weren’t finalized. Morpho needed them to be. Setup was nearly complete. They were moving from Harbour’s surface and heading for a space station to take over. It was mostly a gigantic control and research lab, at least half of it dedicated to finding out what was going on with Xovan’s weather, and Morpho needed its space. She needed to understand the cold and the atmospheric regulation.

She needed it because there was a chance Variket could be recovered.

If the atmospheric regulator on Variket kept functioning through its destruction, then people could still be alive on Variket- growing plants with lights, keeping themselves alive as if they were in a cave. Just because they were adrift in space didn’t mean they were doomed.

Morpho’s science teams had tracked Variket’s trajectory based on the stats from its severance, and they’d found it. The vast silver-green Ring, spinning through space, abandoned. Someday it would probably hit a planet and cause a lot of trouble.

But it was intact. Morpho had ships tracking it.

Morpho had ships tracking everything.

So what did this have to do with a small research base on Ferolus? Almost nothing. But Morpho’s ideals were going to apply to all of Shadowside, not just part of it, and she- through careful simulation- had determined that the prototype holographic lock they were working on was better used in Shadowside’s hands. The lock easily overloaded if handled improperly, causing severe burns and neural deadening, but the Ferolus bunch hadn’t managed to get far enough into development to figure that out. Morpho was going to make sure no one lost a hand working on this.

She waited.

Reports filtered up, slowly but steadily, one after another. The team moved in. The team acted normal. The staff there treated the team as just more scientists and cleaning staff. The main lab was accessed.

The team found the data, but also a prototype lock.

“What do we do with this?” was the obvious question. Morpho paused. If they took the lock, it would be obvious that it was missing. But if they left it, the data collection might be completely pointless, and this entire job would be a waste of valuable resources.

“Can it be disassembled?” She had an audio link to the team lead, who was standing in the main lab, waiting. Normally she didn’t talk to her ground teams. This time she did- in intense operations, she did.

“No, Director. At least- we don’t know how.”

“Find a way to sabotage the lock,” Morpho ordered. “After you take the data. Break it somehow. Tweak something. Slip a section out of place.”

“Yes, sir.”

Five minutes later, the lock was inoperable and her people were moving out of the building. Morpho listened as they exited, one by one, with the data that right now was being erased in the facility. Some unfortunate scientists would be to blame tomorrow, she knew, and pitied them a little bit- her people were good. They’d faked a software failure coupled with a generic virus that could be traced back to one of the local terminals filled with random material downloaded off the overnet.

Shadowside would never be implicated. They were too smooth.

Morpho shut down the comms. She didn’t need to congratulate the team. They’d done their job, just like they were paid to. That didn’t garner any extra praise from her.

Now. On to more… interesting plans.


	25. Interlude - Homeworlds: Thell Vyrn

None of the creatures of Iridere are native- Iridere is a construction, not a naturally formed planet. The various sapient species that inhabit it are from many different planets across the galaxy. Vikyrelle hail from their massive homeworld of Thell Vyrn.

Thell Vyrn is the second planet from its sun, a respectable main sequence blue giant called “Aphaeryonaxhaliia,” or “Banisher of [the] dark, protectorate of [the] light.” Alternatively, it is simply called “Iia,” or “Light.”

The only planet closer to the sun than Thell Vyrn is Gytheir, a small and tidally locked planet with no atmosphere to speak of and a surface that is half blasted by Iia’s radiation and half starved of any source of energy whatsoever. It is little more than an orbiting rock, only a planet by the fact that it was too large to be considered an asteroid. It has no moons.

Thell Vyrn is second, with one average-sized moon and a few stray orbiting asteroids that sometimes reflect light. It orbits Iia in the time it takes Earth to orbit Sol roughly 1.32 times.

The third planet from Iia lies a fair distance away from Thell Vyrn, beyond a weak excuse for an asteroid belt and a couple of drifting satellites that have gotten very lost. It is a class III gas giant, very large and very blue and otherwise unremarkable. It is called “Rhigah,” which translates to “Pearl.” Evidently, the shimmering blue orb- which is visible from Thell Vyrn’s surface as a blueish star twinkle and can be easily seen with only minor magnification- reminded early vikyrelle of pearls that could be found in Thell Vyrn’s oceans.

There are no other regularly orbiting structures of note in the Iia system, other than a comet that passes through every three-hundred twenty Iia-solar years.

Thell Vyrn is a planet covered in towering forests and wide, terraced canyons. The planet is perhaps half again as large as Earth, and roughly seventy-seven to seventy-nine point four percent of it is ocean (the amount depends on the ice coverage and what has happened to various parts of the volcanically active continents). It’s quite similar to the human homeworld if one ignores the slightly lower landmass as compared to the amount of water. There is only one major continent on Thell Vyrn, although for a very long time it was considered two continents- the center of the continent runs over the north pole of the planet, and is covered by ice. No one suspected there was actual land below the ice until depth scans and core samples revealed this to be true.

The continent is very long, and to this day still bears the names of its halves- Aafarothe and Sulene. These were the names originally given to the ‘continents’ before they were discovered to be, in fact, one landmass. For all practical purposes, we will refer to them as two separate places. All of the names of the areas are somewhat rough translations; the names are in the vikyrelle language do not translate cleanly into the galactic standard language.

Aafarothe is the first, covered mostly in forest. The western coast, called the Sun Coast, is a broad sweep of sandy dunelands that stretch for miles inland, running down from the Sorrow Sea and the Frozen Coast near the ice caps in the north to the ocean at the southern tip of Aafarothe. Once the coast curves towards the west, the dunes transition into the sand marshes, which slowly become the Mute Lands. Within the Mute Lands lies the Silent Delta, the mouth of one of the two major rivers that cut across Aafarothe.

The Mute Lands cover most of the southern coast and some of the western coast. Above them, occupying most of the inland area and a small stretch of the coast, is the Wide Wood, the most habitable forested area of the continent. Above the Wide Wood is the Dust Wood, about half the size of the Wide Wood, lying just to the east of the northern tip of the Sun Coast. The mountains that rise occasionally from the dunes and that continue into the Frozen Coast prevent the Dust Wood from receiving as much rain as the other parts of the continent get.

To the northeast of the Dust Wood is the Cold Wood, the northernmost part of Aafarothe. This area, as the name suggests, is very cold and often covered in snow- it resembles a taiga far more than it resembles a deciduous woodland. The only thing north of the Cold Wood is ice, stretching over the northern pole of Thell Vyrn and reaching down onto Sulene.

To the east-southeast of the Cold Wood lies a small stretch of grassy flatlands, one of the few that exists on Thell Vyrn. The plains last only a few miles before rising into a volcanic mountain range called the Harrowing.

Beyond the Harrowing is the Migrant Wood, a forest of peculiar trees that are so tall and thin that they look like the legs of massive beasts moving, and if not carefully viewed, can be mistaken for the legs of massive beasts moving. This is also because there are a species of massive beasts endemic to the Migrant Wood that are tall and have legs that resemble the thin trees. The vikyrelle do not tangle with these beasts; they are peaceful herbivores, and do not thrive outside the Migrant Wood.

Kielihri, the capital city of Aafarothe, is situated within the Wide Wood. Several other influential vikyrelle cities- capitals of technological innovation and advancement- are also located within the Wide Wood.

Sulene is the second continent. Its west coast is a perilous, mountainous region, its name roughly translating to something akin to ‘the Rainmere,’ the far western slopes home to peculiar vegetation and everything east of it a bone-dry rainshadow desert.

The desert is vast. There are some canyon areas, a few lone mountains, and a single river running through it from the western coast to the southeastern bay. The river’s existence has produced a multitude of deep canyons that scar Sulene’s southern face in a dramatic formation that can easily be seen from orbit.

Deep within the canyons- which are collectively called Crevasse- are situated a great number of vikyrelle cities- the desert cities. The capital city of Sulene, Halea, lies near the great Afene, the river that carved Crevasse.

Afene does not run all the way to the eastern edge of the continent. It empties into an inlet perhaps two-thirds of the way towards the east; the rest of the continent is naught but a sand and dust desert peninsula called the Outwards, dry from the Crevasse all the way to the seashore.

Above the Outwards, though, is a mostly circular bay. Rumor has it that the bay, called- imaginatively- Eastern Bay, was either a supervolcano or the site of a meteor impact. Neither of these things have been confirmed, although the supervolcano is far more likely. Where the power behind the volcano has gone, however, is unknown.

Eastern Bay can be recognized by its circular shape. The edges of the Bay that aren’t bordered by Sulene are bordered by a few curving islands called the Coral Rim, well-placed enough that they support the idea of the Bay’s shape not being something natural.

West of the Bay, just above the desert and Crevasse, is a wide area of grassy flatlands that stretches from shore to shore. Vikyrelle rarely go there, leaving the flat expanse to the herds of herbivores that frequent the area, which is called the Roam. The only vikyrelle there are those living in the experimental floating cities.

North of the Roam is the Waste, a somewhat desolate tundra area. Again, it is not a favored location for the tree- and canyon-dwelling vikyrelle, and is mostly left alone, as they have no need or desire to colonize it with their population well under control. North of the Waste is more of the ice cap that covers the north pole of the planet.

The only other solid ‘land’ is the southern ice cap, but there is no actual continental matter beneath it, and there are no vikyrelle there.

Originally, vikyrelle were designed to scamper through the upper branches of the trees, but evolved to be able to climb down onto the forest floor and slowly moved out into the canyons as well, growing larger as they did but remaining just as capable of climbing. Eventually this gave rise to the two types of vikyrelle looking very different- canyon versus forest- although still capable of interbreeding.

Thell Vyrn is also renowned for being breathtakingly gorgeous, whether viewed on the ground or from orbit. The planet’s colors are something found nowhere else in the galaxy- the rocks in the canyons can be any color from vibrant magenta to soft turquoise-teal due to the minerals and metals within. The magentas and purples are so often found in the canyons that many vikyrelle have adapted to be this color, especially if they are xiale- their feathers, so vibrant anywhere but their homeworld, prove to be more than adequate camouflage amongst the brightly colored rocks.

Camouflage is no longer necessary, given that vikyrelle are a very advanced spacefaring species with more than enough resources to keep themselves safe from natural hazards, but evolution has not progressed and the color remains.

Canyon vikyrelle often have violet, reddish, magenta, golden, and orange hues to their feathers. Some will tend towards malachite and copper tones depending on where they’re from. The better they are at blending in to their surroundings, the better hunters they were. Of course, hunting is no longer common on Thell Vyrn, as food can simply be raised in farms. Some engage in the practice regardless.

Forest vikyrelle also mimic their surroundings, and thus are usually colored in greens, browns, blues, and deep purples. Sometimes they will have splashes of bright accent colors that mimic some of the bright plants or animals in the forest.

The massive trees of Thell Vyrn’s forests have proved quite adaptable- many of them have lost their heartwood, creating huge hollow constructions that make fantastic homes, and the largest trees are often stabilized with modern construction and used as large buildings for multiple purposes. Unlike human cities, Thell Vyrn’s cities function in three dimensions rather than two- given that the vikyrelle evolved as climbing creatures they have a penchant for building directly upwards, creating houses that have no visible means of access aside from climbing. This also means that they do not use roads like humans do- rather, they use innumerable complex pulley systems to move heavy loads around their cities. It’s not uncommon to find a vikyrelle city completely strung through with ropes and wires with which to move materials around. Pulleys are less common now that there are load-bearing devices to fly things around, but they’re still used in more rural areas.

The trees of vikyrelle cities are not always stable; like other living things, they will decay and die over time. The vikyrelle have solved this problem by slowly replacing a tree as it degenerates, swapping out organic material for carbon mesh, concrete, and metals. Eventually the tree will be gone, but a statue of it will remain. The vikyrelle cities look like an artistic mesh of massive organic city and futuristic architecture, featuring a lot of curving organic designs and bioluminescence. Vikyrelle cities often glow at night- electric lighting is less efficient than biolighting on Thell Vyrn, given that some species of algae glow brightly enough to grow plants by. Tanks of this algae are often built into the ceilings of homes and carefully tended from a walkway just beneath the roof.

Vikyrelle cities also feature a lot of stained glass and cleverly designed water features. It takes a lot to pump water up to every single house in the city- often, what the city does is pump water up to a single source and have it flow down through the entire city in a sort of vertical aqueduct, spilling down through layer after layer of buildings and being redirected and used where necessary. Separate channels are used for wastewater, which is treated before being released back into the original stream.

Gardens are not only commonplace, but expected. Plants are present in every home. Fires are carefully contained, although the moist atmosphere of most forest cities prevents fires from being too much of a hazard. An abundance of animal life on Thell Vyrn also means that the atmosphere isn’t too high in oxygen, further reducing the risk of citywide fires.

Public transportation is common for long jaunts across the cities, as it uses a lot less fuel than private transport. Monorails and hoverbusses are some of the cheaper ones. In addition to the pulley wires, metal cart rails crisscross vikyrelle cities for transports to use. To avoid collisions, most public transport is networked to a single city hub, which coordinates the movements of the transports to make sure that everything can move smoothly and quickly without sacrificing efficiency.

Because of the beauty and functionality of vikyrelle cities, members of other species sometimes choose to visit Thell Vyrn or even live there. The vikyrelle do not mind; as long as their guests do not upset the equilibrium between using Thell Vyrn’s resources and returning the energy to the planet, they are free to do as they like.

In a few areas of Thell Vyrn, some of the cities are built over limestone ground, and occasionally they will break through into massive caverns below. The cities are not evacuated- instead, the vikyrelle have repurposed the caverns and included them in their cities. Some vikyrelle forest cities can be two miles high or more, from the top of the canopy- a leafy ocean occasionally punctuated by building spires and solar collection panels- to the tip of the roots, crawling down the cavern walls.

Bird analogues and other wildlife are common in the cities, and welcomed- they keep pests from gnawing at the structure of the trees, and improve the city overall. Other species have noted that while in most cities wildlife is tolerated and sometimes enjoyed, the vikyrelle seem to have a more symbiotic relationship with their wildlife.

The canyon cities are much different in the fact that they do not have skyscraper-like structures already grown for them. The desert stone also isn’t the best kind for building, and thus most canyon cities are carved out of the rocks. Natural archways are exploited to the maximum, and new arches and bridges are constructed from glass, plastic, and steel.

Most desert cities are carved into the sides of canyons, as the shaded burrows are much cooler than any building sitting on top of the mesas and sands, and are all but invisible. However, collecting power for the city is important, and the easiest types to access in the desert are solar and wind. Massive turbines can be raised from the canyon to collect wind- sails that catch the slightest breeze and spin generators below- and usually the turbines remain out, gathering power day and night. They are only ever lowered in severe storms or when the city is under attack.

Vikyrelle are feathered. They have to stay cool in the desert heat, and traipsing through the sand wastes is not the kind of thing they prefer (it was necessary before the advent of maglev trains). Fortunately, air travel was always something they admired, and before they used high-speed airplanes, they had dirigibles and zeppelins. Though no longer the fastest way to travel, balloons are still used partially for the aesthetic pleasure of those within them.

Water is another precious resource that can be hard to come by in the desert. The vikyrelle have solved this by occasionally repurposing a wind turbine and attaching a drill to the bottom to create a well. A few experimental cities have drilled holes in the bottoms of canyons that are truly massive in scope, pits with bridges crisscrossing their wide expanses and homes ringing the edges. Some of the pits are deep enough that the sun only reaches the bottom at exactly midday, giving it almost no chance to strike the water shimmering there and evaporate it.

Currently, there are a few experimental cities wandering about over Thell Vyrn’s somewhat neglected plainslands. The lands are good for farming, but have not always been used thus, as the vikyrelle tend to be more carnivorous than anything, and what plants they did farm were perfectly happy living in the branches of the forest. The floating cities- constructions that rely heavily on balloons, sails, and gyroscopics- can be moved around. They will usually anchor themselves in a certain area with innumerable ground-ties, but should a storm appear it is not uncommon for a floating city to pull up its ties and make for a safer area. The cities can even ground themselves in case of a real emergency.

The floating cities, since there are only a few of them, are something of a rare sight to the average vikyrelle. The cities are vast, silvery creations, hovering above the grasslands with their stabilizer fins cutting the air in graceful sweeps that sometimes almost reach down to the tall, thick grass below. Just above the stabilizer fins and below the actual city itself, are the gas bags filled with helium that help keep the city aloft. It’s not just the helium, of course- there are also massive fans in the city wings and the city core itself that produce massive amounts of lift without requiring any fuel. The power for these fans comes from the many solar panels, wind turbines, and solar sails that the city possesses. Most floating cities have huge solar sails that they will erect not only to collect power, but also to help drive the city in a desired direction if it is on the move.

This is not to say that all vikyrelle live in cities, because they most certainly do not. There are numerous smaller villages in the forest and desert that do not have the luxury of rail systems and still have use rope and wire for transport. There are settlements deep in the canyons where water is available without drilling, small groups of buildings clustered around springs and creeks. Most settlements do not have the level of technological advancement as the large cities.

As a culture, the vikyrelle highly value the environmental sustainability of their beautiful planet, and fight extremely hard to keep it from becoming overly polluted or industrialized. They are quite capable of keeping their population under control- as the xiales of their vikyrelle are the only ones capable of incubating vikyrelle eggs, the limited number of xiales and their increased capability for making sound decisions without yielding to emotion or outside influence has prevented the population explosion typical of a less restrained species.

Thell Vyrn is widely regarded as one of the most beautiful planets in the galaxy, perhaps _the_ most beautiful of all of them. The vikyrelle do not contend this. Some of the more brightly decorated members of the species insist that Thell Vyrn is the only place a race as beautiful as the vikyrelle could have come from. This point is also uncontested- there is no doubt that the shining and flamboyant vikyrelle are by far some of the most stunning creatures to be seen in the galaxy.

Vikyrelle have colonized other worlds, but they do not thrive anywhere but their homeworld. They are designed to live amongst the trees of their homeworld- lesser planets, with a slightly lower gravity and less color- simply cannot support the vikyrelle as well as Thell Vyrn can. This may be the reason many vikyrelle choose not to leave their homeworld. It’s known to be a dangerous business. Leaving means learning to walk on flat land rather than climb comfortably on the innumerable rails that serve as walkways in the three-dimensional vikyrelle cities; it means risking the incredibly strong but also fragile finger bones of the vikyrelle front hands for a chance to see the universe. It is a gamble, and for some it does not pay off.

A vikyrelle’s hands are designed to change shape. In order to be able to perform complex tasks that require fine motor skills, the fingers point forwards, somewhat resembling a human hand but for the orientation of the fingers. In order to walk through their cities and climb through their homes, vikyrelle ‘unlock’ their hands and change their hand shape to one much more resembling that of a chameleon, with two fingers on either side of the hand easily clamping down on a rounded branch or rail. Neither of these conditions are well-suited for walking on flat ground.

If a vikyrelle is not careful, their muscles and tendons can be irreparably strained by walking to the point where it is difficult for them to grasp branches and rails. Before their industrial revolution, it was a death sentence- it is equivalent to not being able to walk, but in a place where a single stumble could send one falling from the canopy to certain death on the forest floor. Fortunately there are now several ways to deal with this problem, or avoid it entirely- some vikyrelle have adopted exoskeletal aids that encase their hands and wrists completely and prevent the muscles from being damaged.

Additionally, while hands are good at grasping and climbing, the bones within will still break easily. If a vikyrelle hand is stepped on, especially while they are walking on flat ground (which usually requires a combination of standing on their tiptoes and walking awkwardly on their palms), nearly every bone in the hand can be broken. This is something that, unfortunately, other species have utilized in crime, if a hostile creature can get near enough to a vikyrelle to smash its hand. Vikyrelle usually will not let this happen. They will warn off an aggressor first with words, and then by puffing up, and if necessary, they will show their venomous fangs and even use them.

Even so, most vikyrelle agree that it’s safer in well-established colonies than in space, like those that exist in the canyons of Ferolus. Even more prefer to remain on Thell Vyrn.

The vikyrelle homeworld rests perhaps a week’s flight at FTL speeds from Iridere.


	26. The Amelia: Safe Harbour

“Bringing us into Harbour,” Vari called over the comms. “If we go underwater, nobody panic.”

There was a brief pause. Then, Raleigh heard through the eavesdropper, “Do you have to say things like that all the time?” Charis was on the bridge, standing up in the main helmsman station next to Vari.

“I don’t,” Vari answered. “But it makes everything a little more interesting. Just relaying basic information is boring. Why?”

The _Amelia_ cut down through the atmosphere, leaving the velvet black of space for the lighter blue sky of Harbour.

Charis moved on the bridge; there was a rustling noise as she shifted. “Just curious. And… did you say underwater?”

“Yup. The floating cities on Harbour can tip back and forth with the swell of the waves, and since half the docks are on the edge of the cities they get dunked sometimes.”

“Wow.”

“Don’t worry. The ship’s watertight.”

“I should certainly hope so,” Charis muttered. “How would we survive in the vacuum otherwise?”

A slight pause and a sigh from Vari. “Yeah, you make that connection, Elmina, but a lot of people don’t. Those people need to be reassured that we’re not going to sink and die.”

“Ah.”

Silence.

Vari swept his fingers through the controls, causing them to buzz faintly, and then Raleigh heard a comms channel down to Harbour’s surface open up. “Harbour Control, this is T.F.S. _Amelia_ requesting permission to dock at Niahla Port. Our arrival is scheduled.”

“You’re four days early, _Amelia_,” came the response after a few seconds.

“Our previous stay was cut short. We were at Broadlight Caverns.”

“I see.”

Another pause.

“Alright. _Amelia_, you are cleared to dock. Transmitting the waypoint now.”

The _Amelia_ swept down past a few stray clouds and Raleigh pulled up the view on the outside cameras. Blue-silver water stretched in an expanse around a colorful city, towers and sails glittering in the sunlight. In the center of the cluster of buildings Raleigh could see the city’s main spire, poking up above the rest of the rooftops and forming the mast for the city’s main sails. The sails were massive rectangular expanses of canvas that had once been white, but were now covered in bright designs and patterns. Smaller sails, banners, and pennants in lively colors fluttered from the rooftops of the smaller buildings and houses.

As the _Amelia_ swept over the city, Raleigh could see far below the broad black circle that separated the stable heart of the city from the mobile outskirts and docks. In that shadowed area, she knew, were the complex gyroscopic mechanisms that kept the inner city stable.

Raleigh did a quick sweep of the tumultuous atmosphere above the water and-

There. The faint puffs of emissions not caught by an exhaust trap. There was no sign of another ship in the sky, and yet behind her she could detect the wispy curls of the ghost ship. This was getting ridiculous. She recorded its presence carefully and sent a little note up to Vari about it. He’d read it sooner or later- she marked it urgent, and it would make a light on his console blink repeatedly until he looked at it.

The _Amelia_ swept down and curved around the city, coming in from the east but moving to the northwest side of the construction to dock. Vari maneuvered her to slide gently into her assigned dock.

Once in, supports clamped the _Amelia_ in place and a docking tube attached itself securely to her hull, suctioning on to prevent water from getting in if the area did get submerged. The entire walkway from the ship to the doors leading into the port was sealed to protect against the seawater.

“And we’re in,” Vari said. “You going ashore?”

“Of course. I oversee the business on this ship.”

“Are you taking anyone with you…?”

“Yes.”

A brief pause.

“Are you taking Raleigh with you?”

“No.”

“When are you gonna forgive her for what happened on Averan?”

“Not reporting a serious bomb threat?! I’m not really sure, because that’s pretty high on the list of actions that are approaching unforgiveable.”

“Are you serious? Did you even _read_ her report? I did, because she’s technically under my command before yours. She panicked, Commander, and I get why. If someone punched me in the face I’d damn well flinch when they wound up to do it again. Seeing the same people who kidnapped her and almost killed her would logically make her a little shaky.”

“Nice of you to offer your opinion. And yes, of course I read the report. She panicked, which is something we are trained _not_ to do-“

“Yeah, except Raleigh isn’t a soldier. She can fight because she has to know how - everyone in the security area of the Traders’ Fleet has to- but she’s a _navigator, _not a bodyguard!”

“I don’t have time for this, Mr. Jones. We’ll discuss this at another point in time.”

“You can’t just leave because you know I’m right!”

Silence. Charis swept by seconds later, and Raleigh tried not to move. Fortunately, Charis seemed too annoyed to take any notice of her at the moment, and vanished down into the main area of the ship.

“Jesus,” Vari muttered. “Why doesn’t anyone listen to me?”

Raleigh almost laughed. She was listening- quasi-legally.

After half an hour, Charis picked a few crew members to help her handle business on Harbour and left the ship. The others were let free into the port, leaving the ship mostly empty- only Raleigh, Phrelyuquia, Vari, and a few of the less explorative crew members were left.

Raleigh left her post, shutting down the eavesdropper, and wandered back into the ship. It was weird, being aboard the _Amelia_ while she was so empty. She headed back to engineering to check up on the kinetic shield generators.

After a quiet half hour, movement in the doorway caught her attention. She glanced up. “Oh, hello, Phrell,” she said, surprised, as the vikyrelle entered through the engineering access hallway and paced around the perimeter of the room.

“Hi,” Phrell returned, dipping xir head in greeting. Raleigh took a quick look down at xir front paws, curious- Phrell appeared to be walking on xir tiptoes most of the time. However, in engineering (where the ground wasn’t solid, but instead made of latticed metal like most catwalks and access ways), xi was unable to do that, as xir fingers would slip through the holes in the floor. Instead, xi chose to walk flat-footed, putting all of xir weight on xir palms.

“What are you doing here?”

“I was curious. As you must be. You came back here and normally you don’t stay on the ship. Why are you here?”

“Charis grounded me here, remember?”

“Oh. Right.” Phrell came to stand beside Raleigh and sat down, seeming grateful to take xir weight off xir hands. “What are you doing?”

Raleigh glanced down. She was running a few routine system analyses of the generators, to make sure everything seemed normal. “I’m just looking after the shields.”

“The shields? I thought you could do that from your station.”

“These are the generators.” Raleigh pointed to her right. There was an access ladder that led up into a small, cramped area that could be used to directly access the generators and perform any repairs or modifications. The area was a bit cramped only because their shields had been upgraded to an advanced version that most ships couldn’t even handle.

“They’re kind of large,” Phrell said, looking up at them and back down to Raleigh. “Why?”

“They’re modified. Altered to be more effective than normal shields.” Raleigh liked talking about the shields. They were her specialty aboard the ship, the other thing she really knew about besides navigation. “They can withstand higher force, and more of it, before overloading.”

“Meaning?”

“Pirates can’t get us. Normally what pirates do is disable a ship’s shields and then take out the propulsion if they can, rendering the ship unable to escape. But if they can’t break our shields, we have enough time to jump into FTL travel and get away from them. Once we’re in FTL they can’t track us, so we’re safe.”

“Huh.” Phrell glanced up the ladder again. “Are pirates normally a problem?”

“For the Traders’ Fleet? Yes, sometimes.”

“That’s unfortunate.”

“They board Traders’ Fleet ships and take people hostage,” Raleigh went on, frowning. “It’s… we’re actually more of the security branch of the Fleet; normally we just travel with other frigates and provide a distraction if they get attacked. Or put ourselves between them and anyone firing at them.” She paused. “Honestly, we’re kind of like a bodyguard ship, now that I think about it.”

“Interesting.” Phrell stopped speaking, narrowing xir eyes a little bit. Raleigh got the impression that xi was uncomfortable speaking about anything involving hostages purely for Raleigh’s sake.

“Uh- anyway,” Raleigh said, changing the subject. “Why are you down here?”

“I’m exploring the ship.”

“I thought you already did most of that?”

“Last time I tried to get down here, that fyaeiarnae was down here. I don’t want to be near him.”

“What?” Raleigh stared at xir, incredulous. “You mean Misalu?”

“Mm. Yes, him.”

“Wh…. he’s a biologist! Or… something. He doesn’t have any reason to be down in the engines!” Raleigh looked back at her display, distressed. “That doesn’t make any sense. At all.”

“He doesn’t- wait, what?” Phrell pulled xir neck back a little bit, confused, and fluffed up xir crest to convey this emotion.

“He shouldn’t be down here, is what I’m saying.”

“Then why was he?”

“How should I know?”

Phrell glanced back up. “It was only yesterday. Do you think he did something to the engines or the shields?”

“I haven’t noticed anything off in their running, but we haven’t dropped into FTL since yesterday, nor have we had any collisions. Well, nothing besides normal debris- nothing that would actually test the shields.” She chewed on her lip, skimming through the readouts again. “I don’t like this. What was he doing down here?”

“We could ask him.”

“Is he even on the ship?” Raleigh had a disturbing memory, of encountering Misalu right before her incident on Kalyrio. His odd words… her unease.

“There’s one way to find out.”

True. Raleigh debated, the nodded and closed down the generator display. “Alright. Let’s.”

Phrell led the way out. As soon as xi got to solid ground, xi stood up on xir tiptoes to walk again. Raleigh couldn’t help but look.

“Doesn’t that get uncomfortable?”

“Hmm?”

Raleigh gestured at Phrell’s hands. “Walking like that. Your fingers look so fragile. Don’t they get hurt?”

“Our fingers are incredibly strong, but yes, putting my weight on them hurts a little bit. I alternate between walking up like this and down on my palms. My species isn’t built to walk on flat ground.”

“Right.” Raleigh knew that the vikyrelle had vertical cities on their homeworld, and climbed more than they walked. “Do vikyrelle ships look anything like ours inside?”

“No. Our ships are… well, they’re differently shaped, and more open. We don’t need hallways and walkways- all we need are rails to climb on. So we can have open space and even though we’re bigger, our ships can be smaller because we don’t need to have lots of room for walkways and staircases.”

“That’s kind of cool.”

Phrell nodded.

The two emerged from the engineering access and headed through the commons to the med bay, on the starboard side of the ship. That’s where Misalu normally was, along with Dr. Vivaki. However, Dr. Vivaki was ashore at the moment, meaning Misalu would be alone in here.

Raleigh opened the door via the access panel and poked her head in. “Hello?”

No answer.

“H-“

“Allow me,” Phrell said, pushing past. The vikyrelle swept in and called, “Misalu! Show your traitorous face.”

“Whoa there,” Raleigh said nervously. “That’s- uh-“

“A little dramatic,” Phrell admitted. “Hmm. I’m making accusations without basis. That is not a very good habit.”

Raleigh just stayed quiet. Phrell shook xir head and said, “Anyway. I don’t think he’s in here.”

“Where is he, then?”

Phrell pulled off an approximation of a shrug. “I don’t know. Maybe we should check the security feeds and see if we can spot him.”

“Right. And… Vari has those.” Raleigh backed out of the med bay. “We should go see him up on the bridge. He’s probably still there.”

Phrell whisked xir tail out of the way of the closing door and nodded. “Alright… so you know the helmsman?”

“Uhh… not really,” Raleigh said, frowning again. “I mean, he’s technically my boss. He talks to me like he talks to every other secondary. I mean, he’s really funny and nice to all of us. But that’s about it.”

“Hmm.” Phrell tilted xir head back and forth, thinking. “Is he treated with much respect?”

“Generally, yeah. Nobody wants to piss him off since he’s flying the ship. I mean, even if they were rude to him, he would never do anything to deliberately endanger us or the _Amelia_. And he’s friendly, so everyone’s nice because nobody has a reason to be mean to him.”

“Sound logic.”

“Also basic decency,” Raleigh added. “So… yeah.”

“Our helmsmen are revered,” Phrell said. “It takes a lot to pilot a ship. Helmsmen require the full use of their fingers, so they have to be very careful walking. That or they can get a special exoskeleton for walking… a metal hand that fits over theirs and takes the weight off their fingers. It transfers the pressure to their arms. Interesting, but I don’t think I’d wear one.”

“Huh. Why not?”

“They are costly and in them I could not touch the ground. No thank you.”

They emerged onto the bridge. Sure enough, Vari was humming to himself and messing with something on his display.

“Er- excuse me,” Raleigh said tentatively.

Vari glanced over. “Oh, Raleigh,” he said. “Need something?”

“We were wondering if you knew where Misalu was. He’s not in the med bay.”

“I can try and look for him,” Vari said, pulling up the security feeds. “Why do you need him?”

“We’ve got some questions for him,” Phrell said evasively.

Raleigh glanced over at xir. You didn’t need to keep secrets from Vari when they concerned the ship. “He was down in the engineering control yesterday and we want to know why.”

“What the hell was he doing down in the engineering control?” Vari flicked through the feeds, searching them for any hint of the elusive doctor. “That…”

“We don’t know. That’s why we’re going to ask him.”

Phrell let out a half-growl, half-sigh. “I don’t expect a straight answer,” xi said. “Something about him rubs me the wrong way.”

“Do you get staticky?” Vari said, before he could stop himself.

“Ha-ha.”

Vari chuckled to himself. Raleigh rolled her eyes.

One of the feeds caught a blip of movement as Vari scrolled past, and he went backwards, pulling it up to full size. It was the front hold- someone was walking around down there, poking through the cargo. Raleigh narrowed her eyes.

“Alright, what?” Vari said, staring.

“Down we go,” Phrell announced.

“I’ll let you know on your personal comms if he goes anywhere,” Vari called, as Phrell and Raleigh turned and hastened down through the bridge towards the hold.

Unfortunately, it was a bit of a hike. They had to proceed through the commons area and down a flight of stairs to reach the hold access. The good part about it was that there was only one way to get in and out of the hold from within the ship- Misalu couldn’t slip past them.

“He’s still in the hold,” Vari let them know, through Raleigh’s comms.

“Got it.” Raleigh went down the staircase first, Phrell on her heels (using the railing as a walkway instead of the actual stairs).

The hold was mostly empty- they’d offloaded the cargo for Harbour already, and after this the only stop they had left was Xovan Orbital before they rejoined the Fleet back in familiar space. Raleigh glanced furtively around and didn’t see any movement.

“Where?” she whispered.

“Port side, towards the front,” Vari informed her, also whispering for some reason.

Phrell and Raleigh split up and moved quietly towards Misalu, as if stalking him. The idea was absurd- what were they going to do? Ambush him?

He was standing in front of a small console, talking quietly. The screen in front of him glowed a faint blue-green, and there were no images- if he was talking to someone, they weren’t trading video. Raleigh strained, but couldn’t hear him. She glanced over at Phrell, hoping maybe the vikyrelle’s ears were sharper than hers. They crept closer. Raleigh turned off her comms to get rid of any white noise and was able to catch the occasional words from Misalu.

“…yes, of course, I know-“

A pause.

“…no, I…” his words faded out and Raleigh couldn’t distinguish them.

Phrell glanced over and xir eyes lit upon a stack of boxes. Without consulting Raleigh, xi backed up and vanished into the boxes, then reappeared as xi used xir powerful hind legs to leap atop the boxes and curl into a sitting position there. Xir tail hung down, a vibrant violet banner. After a moment, Phrell shifted to be lying down comfortably.

Misalu didn’t notice, as his back was turned. Raleigh snuck out of her hiding spot and stood below Phrell. She leaned against the boxes and crossed her arms.

“I don’t know if anyone’s aware, m’am. Yes. No, I have no intention of leaving. I also have no intention of sharing- what?.... no, she’s not with us. She doesn’t trust me.”

Phrell poked xir head over the edge of the crates. Raleigh glanced up and made eye contact.

“Alright. I’ll make another report when I can.”

Misalu clicked the terminal off. A small light in the upper right flashed a few times, and he stood there, gripping the edges of the terminal and hanging his head. After a moment he took a breath and straightened his shoulders, then turned around and started to walk forward. His expression was harried and somewhat annoyed, and then he saw Raleigh and Phrell standing in front of him and stopped short. “Oh… hello.”

“Hi there,” Raleigh said, almost conversationally. “What are you doing?”

“Uh,” said Misalu blankly. He blinked a few times and shook his head. “Ah. I was making a report to one of my superiors.”

“Oh?”

“Yes.” He put his hands behind his back and clasped them together. “I suppose you want to ask a few questions about what I was saying?”

“I’m not really interested in that,” Raleigh said, at the same time as Phrell said “Yes, actually.”

Raleigh glanced up at xir. Xi glared down.

“Ask away,” Misalu said breezily.

“Who were you talking to?”

“A superior.”

“That’s too vague. Who was it? Specifically.”

“My boss.” Misalu stared right back at xir, not blinking. “A scientist who has a higher security clearance than I do and wanted more of the data from Wenyrev.”

“Who was it that you said doesn’t trust you?” Phrell called from the top of the boxes, flicking xir tail back and forth. “Explain that.”

Misalu raised an eyebrow. “I was talking about Doctor Vivaki. I showed up the day we both boarded this ship, and she doesn’t like me. Why are you asking me these, anyway? You must have had an alternative purpose for coming all the way down here to find me.”

“You were in the engineering control area yesterday,” Raleigh stated, finally getting to the question she wanted to ask. “Why? Why were you there?”

“The engineering…?” Misalu paused, actually seeming confused. “I don’t… hmm.”

“Well?”

“I… do not have a good answer for that,” Misalu said after a moment, looking away from Raleigh. “Aside from ‘I was curious about it.’”

Raleigh stared. That was the best he could do? “Honestly?”

“Yes. If I am on a ship, I would like to know about said ship.”

“You don’t study ships,” Phrell snapped. “You study plants. And such. Why do you care about ships?”

“I care because they are interesting,” Misalu said tiredly. “Are you going to be finished interrogating me any time soon? Because I have work to do, and I have already taken enough time away from it.”

Raleigh narrowed her eyes. He seemed to have ready-made (albeit flimsy) explanations for everything he was doing. “What were you doing on Kalyrio before I got taken?”

The question clearly confused Misalu. “Er… I beg your pardon?”

There were a few seconds of total silence as Raleigh tried to assemble her confusion into a legitimate question. “You said you had business in the port. But you didn’t even know we were docking there.”

“I did, actually,” Misalu told her. “Why would you think I did not? I am aboard this ship for the purpose of compiling the data from Wenyrev and organizing it for my superiors. They wanted me to pick up a few small items on Kalyrio and have them brought back to the ship to assist in my studies.”

Raleigh totally ran out of questions to ask. “Well… um.”

“Am I free to leave?” The sarcasm was heavy in his voice.

Slightly nervous, Raleigh gestured towards the far end of the hold, where the staircase was. “Be my guest,” she told him, with a lot more confidence than she felt.

“Thank you,” Misalu told her and, with an exaggerated bow, he swept past and disappeared through the remaining crates.

Phrell climbed nimbly down off the boxes. “Well, that was useless,” xi growled, staring after the scientist.

“Not true,” Raleigh interjected. “The console. We can mine it for data.”

“We can?”

“Yes.” Raleigh hurried up to it and pulled up the logs… but it seemed that Misalu was more cautious than he let on. As she opened it, the last traces of the call were erased, wiped from the memory of the console. “Oh, rats.”

“A hole in your plan?”

“He wiped it. Never mind what I said about mining it for data.” Raleigh turned her comms back on and winced as Vari suddenly yelled in her ear.

“-t answering me, but it really isn’t funny!”

“Lord,” Raleigh said, before she could stop herself. “Ow.”

“Raleigh?”

“I had my comms off. That hurt.”

“Oh. Sorry.” Vari went quiet for a minute. “Well, did you figure it out?”

“No. He said he was down in the control because he was curious about how the ship works. We caught him down here talking to someone… his ‘superiors’ apparently, but I don’t trust him.”

“Neither do I. He tried to weld something onto my girl’s hull,” Vari muttered. “Did you hear what he was saying?”

“Something about how he doesn’t ‘know if anyone’s aware’ and how he has ‘no intention of leaving.’ Also something about how someone doesn’t trust him.”

“Well that could mean literally anybody on this ship.”

“Whoever he was talking about was female.”

“Aw, and I thought he was thinking of me. Damn.”

Raleigh didn’t answer that.

“Okay. Well… what about the-“

“He wiped the logs.”

“Damn!” Actual frustration this time. “I don’t like this.”

“Neither do I.”

“I’m lost,” Phrell said, reminding Raleigh that xi existed. “What is he saying to you?”

“Vari, we’re coming up. Phrell can’t hear my comms.”

“Right.”

They headed back up to the bridge. Vari had abandoned his seat and was pacing around, hands behind his back, shoulders hunched over.

“Raleigh,” he said, as she entered. “I don’t like this. There’s something going on here.”

“Uh-“

“Elmina doesn’t like Misalu, and she doesn’t trust him, but she doesn’t suspect him either. He’s just an annoyance to her. But there is something… I don’t think he’s working for us. Why is he on the _Amelia_ anyways?!”

Raleigh shifted. “I don’t… know?”

“It’s because we have orders to keep him here. Him and Doctor Vivaki.” Vari turned. Raleigh watched as he went back and forth. “Orders from our bosses back in their command station. But why would they want some scientists on one of their security ships? It doesn’t make sense. It doesn’t make sense!”

“I agree, but-“

Vari turned, almost pleading, holding out his hands. “Someone is keeping Misalu on our ship and it sure isn’t anyone in the Fleet.”

There was silence on the bridge. Phrell glanced back out towards the rest of the ship, as if expecting to see Misalu standing just at the edge of their conversation, listening to them.

“Now that is a thought,” xi said after a moment.

“I don’t like it,” Raleigh said, frowning. “I don’t like it.”

“You have to agree-“

“No, I agree,” Raleigh cut Vari off, holding out one hand. “I- I do. But I don’t _like_ it.”

“Who would be sending the orders to have him here, if it’s not your superiors?” Phrell asked, tail twitching anxiously.

Vari shrugged. “Hell if I know.” He paused, expression hardening. “But hell if I won’t find out.”

“How?”

There was a brief silence.

“His personal files,” Vari said. “I’m going to break into his computer.”

“You know that’s illegal, right?” Raleigh moved aside as Vari turned and swept past her, headed for the med bay.

“You know impersonating a Traders’ Fleet official is illegal, right?” Vari replied, not breaking a stride.

Raleigh hurried to catch up to him, and Phrell did the same. “Okay. But, uh… how are we going to get him away from his console? I mean, he’s probably in there.” Were they really going to do this?

“Huh. Good point.” Vari slowed a little bit. “Well…”

“Someone has to lure him away.”

“And?”

“And it’s not going to be either of us,” Phrell determined. “He’s wary of us. We interrogated him.”

Vari stared at xir, a frown creasing his features. “What are you suggesting.”

“You’re going to have to distract him.”

“What? How?! I _hate_ him. And he hates me! What could I possibly…” he shook his head. “No! No.”

“There’s no other way to get him to leave his console, unless you want to wait for him to wander into another part of the ship again,” Phrell insisted.

“…really?” Vari grimaced and glanced down at a table as they passed, pausing to run his fingers over a scratch in the metal.

“Yes.” Phrell stated with total conviction; Raleigh did not contradict xir.

“Well. Alright then.” Vari pulled his hand away from the table and looked over at Phrell. “But…”

“What?”

“I have _no_ idea what I’m doing,” the pilot admitted.

“Lure him away with something he likes,” Phrell suggested.

“I don’t know what he likes!”

“What would he find interesting?”

“I don’t know, something about science probably.”

“Well, that’s a starting point,” xi said patiently. “From there, how do you use that to take him somewhere you want him to go?”

Vari glanced over at the med bay, then down again. He ran a hand over his mouth and shook his head. “Alright. I… I think I have an idea.”

Raleigh raised an eyebrow. “And…?”

“Let’s do this.”

“You’re not going to tell us what it is?”

“Let’s just go.” Vari shook his head. “Man, there had better be _something_ worthwhile on his computer. I’ll keep my comms on. You two hide somewhere. I will be… _right_ out. With Misalu.” He shook his head, then turned and headed for the med bay.

Raleigh watched him go. “You had some… good suggestions there. Do you distract people often?”

Phrell snorted. “No,” xi said, also watching Vari’s departing back. “I just gave him the same advice I give to nervous males trying to court anyone back on Thell Vyrn.”

Raleigh had to suppress her laughter. “_Oh._”

They retreated to a safe distance, hiding in the hallway that connected the commons to the bridge. Raleigh saw Vari round the corner to the med bay door and vanish. Seconds later, she heard:

“Hey. So, uh… I hate you, but-“

“This is not going to end well,” Raleigh murmured.

\--

Vari tapped the control panel and waited as the med bay door slid open, then stepped in. Misalu was standing at a console with at least three monitors attached, working on something.

He cleared his throat. “Hey. So, uh… I hate you, but-“

“What a lovely conversation starter,” Misalu interrupted, not moving from where he was.

“…you’re not even going to let me finish it?” Vari folded his arms and leaned against the wall.

“My apologies. Please, do.”

“Thanks for your _consideration_.” Vari narrowed his eyes, but Misalu didn’t see; he was still focused on the console in front of him. “I was up on the bridge-“

“Where else?”

“-looking over the security feeds, and I noticed something moving around in the engine area-“

“Was it a ghost?”

“…can you cool it for a minute?” Vari unfolded his arms, incredulous. “Seriously? I’m not just in here to listen to you ridicule me while I try to ask you something.”

“And I was having such fun,” Misalu sighed, finally turning to face Vari. He rested on hand on the console and the other on his waist, clearly annoyed at being pulled away from his work. “Very well, I shall attempt to control my tongue. What is it you require?”

“There’s some kind of _thing_ on my ship that shouldn’t be,” Vari snapped. “I went and looked at it but I didn’t get close in case it was, I don’t know, poisonous or something.”

“I’m sure you mean venomous. You need me why?”

“You know… things… about Ring life.” Vari was struggling a little bit. Perhaps he should have given this more forethought. “I thought maybe you’d know what it was. So you could tell me if it’s dangerous. Because if it is, then I won’t try to get it off my ship without help. From someone.”

Misalu’s expression was a mixture of amusement, skepticism, distaste, and some other things Vari couldn’t identify.

“So I need you… to come and look at this thing,” Vari finished lamely.

Misalu was quiet for a few seconds. “I _see_,” he said finally, slowly changing position to lean against the console and fold his arms. “The engine room is quite the distance from here.”

“…yes?”

“Perhaps this small monster of yours has moved.”

“Oh, I doubt it. It didn’t move between when I saw it and when I went and looked at it.”

“Your phrasing indicates that those two events were nearly simultaneous.”

“What?”

“Never mind. So it is… lethargic?”

“Yeah, I… guess so.”

Misalu shifted slightly. “Perhaps you could describe this creature for me? I may be able to identify it without actually seeing it, saving us a needless trip to the engine room.”

This was exactly the opposite of what Vari wanted. He’d have to come up with a vague enough description that Misalu _had_ to come see his weird imaginary creature and leave that console unattended. “Well, uh… It was- okay, you realize I didn’t have that great of a view, right? I was trying to kind of stay out of sight, you know, to kind of… in case it _was_ dangerous, so… I don’t have that many details.” He hoped Misalu wouldn’t bring up the security feeds, because they were highly detailed and in color.

“That’s fine,” Misalu said. “I might be able to puzzle this out regardless.”

“Well, it was about as large as a, a cat, maybe. And kind of… blueish?”

“Hmm,” went Misalu, his expression becoming a little more skeptical.

“Blueish-gray, maybe. O-or white, uh- the lighting in the engine room is really weird-“

“Keep going,” Misalu sighed, closing his eyes and giving the slightest shake of his head.

“Okay. Well… uh. It had six legs, and I don’t think it had any wings although I couldn’t be _sure_ because it didn’t move.”

Misalu stared at him; Vari stared right back.

“It also had antennae,” he said.

“…ah-“ Misalu seemed at a loss for words. “Are you… certain?”

“Well, sort of.”

Misalu leaned forward a bit, staring directly into Vari’s eyes. His expression seemed to say _I know exactly what you are doing._

_Then I hope you play along,_ Vari thought. “Do you have any ideas as to what it is? If it’s dangerous? Because I’d really like it off the ship. My ship.”

Misalu glanced over at his console. “Perhaps,” he said. “There are too many creatures that fit those characteristics. I’ll need more details to pinpoint a certain organism.”

Good and bad. “Uhh…”

“Tell me, did it have a shiny carapace? Or was it dull? Did it have a carapace at all, or did it have skin or scales or fur?”

“Whoa, whoa, hold on,” Vari said. “One thing at a time… I think it had a carapace? That’s just an exoskeleton, right? Okay. Thought so. Um… It looked kind of dull, but it could have been fur. Or it could have been shiny but the air in the engine room is hazy sometimes.”

“That sounds like a problem.”

“Oh, no, it’s totally harmless. It just means the engines have been running. I mean. It just happens when the engines have been running.”

“Mm-hm.” Misalu sighed again. “What about the antennae? Were they straight? Curved? Feathery?”

“Uh… well, they weren’t straight- they were curved, and… what does ‘feathery’ mean?”

“Resembling feathers.”

“Okay, but what does that _mean_?”

“It _means_ that there are small protrusions on the antennae that make them resemble feathers. Would you like me to draw you a picture? Perhaps you’d be able to understand that.”

“Holy crap,” Vari said, holding up his hands.

“…that was slightly excessive.” Misalu frowned. “Continue.”

“I… okay. Geez. Uh. I don’t know if it had feathery antennae. I couldn’t see them that well.” Vari rubbed his face with one hand. “Can you just come look at the damn thing? I’m sure it’s a hell of a lot easier than having me talk about it.”

“No, no. I’m certain I know what it is,” Misalu said patiently. “Tell me anything else you remember about this mysterious creature.”

Vari was almost certain that Misalu was mocking him. “It twitched a lot,” he said. “I think it was some kind of bug.”

“Twitchy, yet lethargic,” Misalu mused. “What a strange combination.”

“Well. It twitched in place. I mean it didn’t move around, but it kind of… vibrated? It moved really fast but only in one spot. Where it was and… yeah.”

“That makes perfect sense. Perhaps some kind of prey animal, ready to flee but not moving normally to prevent itself from being seen. It is a wonder that you were able to spot such a thing those poor-quality security feeds.”

_He’s mocking me_, Vari thought. _He’s running rings around me. I look like a complete idiot. I am a complete idiot._ “Yeah, well. I still didn’t see much. So do you know what it is? Do you know if I have to call an exterminator?”

“For a small prey animal?” Misalu paused. “How large was this creature, anyways? You never mentioned a specific size.”

“I didn’t?” Whoops. Vari frowned. He could have sworn he had, but he didn’t remember. “Well everything in the engine room is the same color so things are hard to see and scale is hard to get, but… I think it was about the size of a dog?” Dogs could be any size. This was a loophole he could exploit!

“Of course.” Misalu tipped his head to the side, thinking. “The standard dog is perhaps a foot high, so I have a very good idea of what this creature may look like. Could you give me a body shape for it?”

This was not going well at all. “No,” Vari said, before thinking. “That’s a lie. Sort of? It was roundish.”

“…that’s all? Roundish?”

“Yyyes.”

“Do you think more spherical or more ovoid? This is very important.”

Vari felt like he was going to have a heart attack. “I don’t know! I didn’t want to get near it! Just… come look at this thing.”

“Is it that frightening, that you must have the naturally armored member of the crew come with you to look at this prey animal?”

“You’re not part of the crew,” Vari snapped. “…and I’m not scared of it! I’m just… cautious.”

“Naturally.” Misalu tapped a few more things into his console; the display blinked and turned to a generic login screen. “Very well, I will come with you. Lead the way to your mysterious beastie and I will attempt to tell you what it is.”

“I hope it hasn’t moved,” Vari muttered.

“I doubt it. You said it was lethargic, didn’t you?”

_I made a huge mistake_, Vari realized, but nevertheless he led the way out of the med bay and into the commons, then back towards the engineering control. “It’s this way.”

“Yes, the engine room. I’m familiar with the passage.”

_Oh, are you? _“Well that’s weird, because you’re not a mechanic. Why would you go down there?”

Misalu somehow managed to stroll amiably alongside Vari with his hands behind his back while Vari hurried towards engineering. “Ships interest me. I like to look at them. I’m no specialist in the field, but I do appreciate them.”

“Ships, or specialists?”

“Both.”

Vari gave him a sidelong glance. Misalu glanced at a piece of the wall that caught the light, watching it as they went by. He seemed utterly unconcerned.

_This had better be worth it._

\--

Raleigh watched, almost incredulously, as Vari exited the med bay, followed closely by Misalu. She’d heard everything they’d said, and was astonished that his ‘distraction’ had worked.

“Impressive,” Phrell commented.

“Come on, let’s go. He probably won’t be able to keep Misalu distracted for long.”

They wound their way through the commons and entered the med bay, going straight for Misalu’s computer. Raleigh found that the screen was a blank login screen, and chewed on her lip, thinking. “Password…?”

Raleigh tried a few cursory passwords, including- on a whim- ‘science.’ To her astonishment, it actually worked.

“Damn,” she said, as the console let her in.

“Great.” Phrell crowded close, xir feathers tickling Raleigh’s arms. “What can we find?”

“Uhh…” Raleigh went skimming through Misalu’s files. The faint background image, she noticed, was an artistic rendition of a jungle, beyond which lay the black speckled expanse of space. Weird.

Vari chattered through the comms occasionally while Raleigh and Phrell worked, giving them updates without sounding suspicious. Or, at least, trying to.

“Oh, I know it was down here,” he said. “I- you’ve got to be joking. I swear it was here. I swear it was right here!” A pause. “I’m going to look around a bit. If this thing is now hiding somewhere in the _ducts_ I am _not_ going to sleep tonight.” Another pause. “That’s… actually not funny. You’re not funny.”

“Nothing so far,” Raleigh muttered. “This is ridiculous.”

“Let me try.” Phrell pushed her gently aside and took over the keyboard. Xi settled in front of the console and toyed with the controls for a second, then got to work, slender fingers moving almost too quickly to see. Raleigh stayed back and waited.

“I- what was that?” Vari called. “I think I saw something.”

“He’s having trouble,” Raleigh observed.

“We need more time.” Phrell puffed xir crest up a bit. “Do you have an administrator override for generic security walls that are pulled from the ship’s database?”

“I’m a secondary!”

“That might be enough.”

“I’ll try.” Raleigh stepped over and tapped in a few of the overrides for the security; one of them worked, and disabled some blockers that Misalu had halfheartedly put up in his files.

Several silent minutes passed, broken only by the occasional line from Vari about the imaginary creature in the engine room. Raleigh paced, antsy.

“…I don’t believe this,” Phrell said finally, staring.

“What?”

“There’s almost nothing. All I’ve got are a few chancy correspondence logs and I haven’t even read them yet because there isn’t time.”

“What?!”

“There are some things I can’t access, but aside from that, he’s not obviously associated with anything other than a few scientific agencies and the Fleet, a bit.” Xi shook xir head. “This is… there’s got to be some way to get into those files-“

“Fine,” Vari said, somewhere in the engine room. “So it’s gone. So it’s somewhere else. Sorry to have wasted your time. The next time I see that thing, I’ll just call Charis. Let’s go.”

Raleigh batted at Phrell’s shoulder. “We need to go.”

“Alright, alright.” Phrell did something with the mail client on the console. “Just let me finish this.”

“We need to hurry. It’s not actually that long of a walk from the engine room to here...”

“I sent the logs to myself and wiped the record of it from his mail,” Phrell said. “We’re set here. Let me shut down the console and we can get out.”

“Hurry…!”

The console’s screens blanked out and returned to the login. Phrell stood and backed up, and Raleigh led xir hurriedly out of the med bay. They managed to get back to the bridge before Vari and Misalu showed up in the med bay, but just barely.

“I-what?... you’re- I don’t like you,” came Vari’s voice over the comms. “Do not think I do. I’m leaving.”

He appeared on the bridge minutes later, looking exhausted and running one hand through his hair. When he saw Raleigh, he almost stopped walking. “You’re here,” he said.

“Yeah.”

“Did you find anything?”

Raleigh glanced over at Phrell. The vikyrelle glanced back, then looked over to Vari and shook xir head. “Not really.”

“But you must have found something, right? ‘Not really’ is a lot different from ‘no.’”

“Well… we found a few logs,” Phrell admitted. Xi stood and headed to an unused console nearby, still talking. “I emailed them to myself so I could look at them… let me just access that.”

While xi worked, Raleigh sidled up to Vari and asked, “So how did that distraction go?”

“That was the worst… what? Half hour? Worst half hour of my life.” He shook his head. “I… I’m pretty sure he knew what I was doing.”

“What?”

“He was literally just toying with me! He’s so goddamn smart there’s no way he didn’t know what was going on. I’m-rrrgh!” He rubbed the back of his neck. “I literally just look like a complete moron. I’m sure he knew I was lying.”

“But… if he knew you were lying, why would he go along with it?”

“I don’t know!” Vari spread his hands, distressed. “Just for fun? Maybe he thinks it’s funny to embarrass me. Maybe he wanted to humor my idiot brain. I don’t know!”

Phrell managed to get xir mail open and brought up the logs. “…these have him talking to someone, a boss, but they’re all very short messages, and there’s _nothing_ incriminating in any of them. He’s either very lucky, very thorough, or not lying to us.”

“I’ll go with thorough,” Raleigh said. “He’s lying to us. There’s… hm.”

“He’s up to something,” Vari said.

“That’s what I was trying to say, but in a less cliché manner.”

Phrell closed the logs. “This is… a difficult matter,” xi murmured, still staring at the screen. “We are going to have to be very careful. We have to figure out what he wants.”

“Oh, we’ll find out,” Vari determined. “If he intends to mess with my ship, he’ll have me to deal with. No one messes with my ship, or my crew.”

They looked at one another in the sudden silence, which lasted a few seconds before the bridge console beeped. Vari tapped the comm unit hooked around his ear and said, “Yes?”

A pause. He nodded. “Roger that. Raleigh, station. Phrell… somewhere else. The commander’s coming back to check on everything.” He paused. “I wonder if I can fabricate a story about getting rid of that creature without Misalu so he won’t bother me about it?”

“That’s up to you,” Raleigh said, escaping from the conversation to her station to work, leaving Vari standing, puzzled, where he was.

So they couldn’t find anything on Misalu’s computer. That was fine. One way or another, they would find out what the scientist was up to.


	27. Conquering King: Collapse

The ocean, when inspected closely, reminded Micah of an oil painting- except, of course, that no artist could ever have hoped to capture the ripples of glassy color that shimmered under the surface of the clear water.

Eight meters below the waves, fish darted around a greenish-brown coral reef, silvery flashes of light that flitted amongst the rocks and sand. But from above, the movement of the waves turned the reef into smears of olive and chocolate, fern and russet and bright cyan where the reef parts to show glimpses of the white sand below, turquoise and soot brown and seal mixed with bright patches of malachite or yellow corals shining occasionally over the somewhat drab background. Black patches of some slimy plant become swathes of shadow that serve to accentuate the brighter colors around them.

Far out to sea, a pod of dorudons sped through the water. They bred in the lagoon here, and sometimes young ones could be seen. Today was not a good day for them. Micah watched as the pod fragmented suddenly, and there was a flurry of activity as a basilosaurus broke the surface of the water, moving swiftly in an attempt to catch one of the younger cetaceans. From here he could almost hear their panicked whistles and calls.

Micah shifted his attention to the shore. Specifically, the cliffs. They were far below him, rising from a narrow cream-colored beach- the cliffs that supported his castle. Slowly, the waves were battering the rocks away underneath him.

_Never build on sandstone_. Who had said that? He didn’t remember. Someone had. He wasn’t sure if this castle was built on sandstone- he hoped not, and the rock seemed to be black and a little glossy- but he was sure that his rule was.

His neighbor country to the north, Naeleran, had pushed forward and unexpectedly taken several kilometers of land before stopping, including a few small villages. This had caused a stir, and Micah still wasn’t sure what to do about it.

Additionally, somehow the truth about his medallion had gotten loose. It was spreading in whispers that Micah was nothing but an ordinary being, that he wasn’t blessed, that the medallion was what really gave him the protection in battle that he always had.

And if it was just the medallion, then anyone could wear it and bear God’s blessing.

Which meant of course that Micah wasn’t chosen at all, and that the only thing that gave him right to be king was the fact that he’d killed the old king in single combat. The old king had foisted the position on him when he’d agreed to fight. “And the victor claims kingship?” the voice rang in his mind, followed by his own affirmation. The old king had of course known that, if Micah killed him, he might have trouble ruling a country, since it wasn’t his area of expertise. Swordplay was.

The old king had _warned_ him, too. Ruling – this was no prestigious position. It was a curse. It was fear, anxiety, danger. Constant concern over the state of his family.

He knew he hadn’t been paying enough attention to his borders. But this was unprecedented. Naeleran hadn’t shown much aggression to him. And there were raiders striking at his villages in the south.

Micah was tempted to recall his soldiers from the Haunted Cities. Especially since one of the Cities had apparently devoured about thirty of his soldiers. They’d gone in, and they hadn’t returned. Others sent in to find them had discovered… nothing.

Still, it didn’t make sense. He was trying so hard to keep everything together, but it was tearing itself apart. Aesila couldn’t even help him now- she was busy caring for Sofeir.

Right. Sofeir. His daughter.

Another reason he was so nervous about the recent happenings in his kingdom and around them. Sofeir was a small delight, but she was also a new target that needed protecting. The same people who had attempted to kill her before birth could try again, even though Micah had disposed of those particular assassins. Micah wondered if he should make sure Sofeir wore his medallion for protection, but then he’d be open to being killed as well…

It all came back to the damn medallion. Micah remembered picking the thing up out of a set of ruins, when it just seemed to be a shiny rock on a string. What had he been then? Sixteen? Seventeen?

-

“En garde!”

Micah watched as, with great enthusiasm, two of the boys from the surrounding area faced each other with knobbed and somewhat pointy sticks. They were sword-fighting, or at least pretending to, something his mother had forbidden him from doing. She was worried he’d get injured. His father, however, had taught him about swordplay without his mother’s knowledge. He could probably beat any of these boys- but he stayed silent where he was, watching from the shade on the edge of the street.

The two boys lunged at each other. The sticks clattered together and parted, cracked together again. They waved the sticks about for a while, each trying to look more dashing and competent than the other, and finally one boy whacked the other on the hand. The second dropped his stick with a yelp. Micah shook his head at the mistakes they had both made.

The second boy caught sight of this. “What?” he shouted, glaring at Micah. “You think you can do better?”

Micah said nothing.

“You think you can? Huh?”

Micah pondered this. Was it an offer? A challenge? He started to refuse, but in a sudden burst of courage, said instead, “I do.”

The second boy’s face contorted in a furious scowl. “Here, then,” he snarled. “Prove it.” He picked up his stick and tossed it at Micah. It bounced to the cobblestones at his feet.

Slowly, Micah stood. He leaned down and scooped up the stick, weighing it in one hand. It was acceptable. The first boy, the victor of the match, stepped back to allow Micah into the street to challenge him.

The other boys fell back again.

“En garde,” said the first boy, just like before. Micah hefted his stick and held it out in front of him.

His opponent lunged. Micah parried and stepped back. The boy recovered and they circled each other, trading blows occasionally- a tap of the stick here, a poke there. Micah tested his adversary, trying to find weak spots like his father had taught him.

There. He spotted several consistent mistakes the boy made, the worst of which was the fact that he crossed his feet in an odd manner when he parried. Micah feinted at him to get him to step sideways, then redirected his stick to catch the boy’s foot. The boy twisted with a shout and fell. Micah pulled out of his lunge and cracked the boy across the hand, causing him to drop his stick. Then he stepped forward and gently touched the tip of his stick to the boy’s throat.

“I win,” he said, and stepped back, pleased.

“Curses on you,” the boy spat, from the cobbles. He didn’t make a move to get up, just sat there.

“Mean,” Micah countered. “Rude. Don’t insult me.”

“Or what?”

“Or I shall trounce you again.” He was utterly confident.

The boy stared at him. “Okay,” he said after a moment, expression changing. “Hey, who are you?”

“My name’s Micah,” Micah said, offering a hand to help the boy up.

The boy accepted, grinning a gap-toothed smile as he stood. “I’m Tor,” he said. “Can you show me how you did that?”

Other boys wanted to challenge Micah; he beat them all. Some were hard to beat. Most were not.

Micah was beating back an older boy called Floren when he heard the ring around him go utterly silent. Not watching-the-action silent, but we’re-in-trouble silent. Floren looked behind Micah and lost focus. Micah took the opportunity to lunge forward and jab him viciously under the ribs. Floren staggered back, wheezing, and Micah flicked the stick up to crack him on the jaw. Floren went down and his stick clattered to the street. Micah stepped forward and tapped Floren’s throat with his stick. “I win! Hah.”

A cough, behind him. Micah turned and froze.

One of the king’s men was standing just outside the circle of boys, watching with apparent interest.

“Oh,” said Micah. His eyes flicked back to the dazed, gasping Floren on the cobles. “Um.”

“How long has this been going on?” asked the guard, almost pleasantly.

_I knew this was a mistake,_ Micah thought. _I should have listened to mum. Don’t draw attention to myself. She’ll be cross when she finds this all out._ “I…”

“How long?”

“He’s been beatin’ on us all afternoon,” muttered Tor, from across the circle. Micah glanced over, shocked and a bit betrayed. Tor shrugged, eyes wide. _What? He’s a royal guard._

“Hm.” The guard looked over at Tor, then back to Micah. “You, who spoke, and you, come with me.” He pointed to each of them in turn. He turned and began to walk. Micah hesitated for a second, then laid his stick down on the street and followed. Tor tagged along behind him.

“Sorry,” Tor muttered. Micah glared at him but said nothing.

When they were a suitable distance from the other boys, out of sight and earshot, the guard stopped and turned to them. They stood next to a building and he leaned on the wall, crossing his arms. “Where did you learn to swordfight?”

Micah pondered whether or not it was a good idea to answer the question.

“Worked it out with the other boys, sir. Copied what the guards did. Sir.” Tor stood straight, his hands behind his back.

The guard looked to Micah. “And you?”

“My father taught me. He’s a soldier.” A pause. “Sir.”

“Hmm.” The guard fell silent, looking at them.

The silence stretched out, making Micah and Tor uneasy. Finally the guard said, “I’ve been watching you since the start of the afternoon. Since your first fight.” He indicated Micah with a nod of his head. “How old are you? Both of you.”

“Thirteen, sir,” Tor said.

“Twelve,” Micah said. He was younger than Tor? He hadn’t realized.

The guard nodded. “Both of you have a natural talent for swordfighting,” he said. “Your skills would be wasted in the army. But… you know you cannot join the royal guard unless you’re of noble blood… or you’re a knight.”

Micah nodded.

The guard seemed to be half thinking to himself, half speaking to Micah and Tor. He left the wall and paced slowly back and forth. “Your swordsmanship is exceptional for those so young and with such little actual training. How would you like to, say, have lessons from some of the guardsmen?”

Both boys stared. What?

“It wouldn’t be official, of course,” the guard continued. “But you have the potential to be knighted someday. And with the enemies our king is set on making, he needs the best guards he can get.” He gestured towards nothing in particular. He seemed nervous. “It wouldn’t cost you anything. But you would have to keep quiet about it.”

This was perfect. “I- yes,” Micah said. “Er- sir. I would like that. Sir.”

“Me too?” asked Tor, hopefully.

“Yes. You’re the only one who even came close to challenging him today.” The guard indicated Micah again. “What are your names?”

“Tor.”

“Micah.”

The guard nodded. “Very well.”

He gave them instructions on where to be and when to be there. Micah hid the bruises he’d gotten that day from his mother and showed up at the practice yard below the castle the next day, just after noon.

The gatehouse guard let him in with no questions. He was early; Tor arrived minutes later, exactly on time.

The guard met them in the yard. “Good! You’re both here. Listen. You may call me Taz.” He was carrying two wooden practice swords, which he abruptly threw towards Micah and Tor. Micah caught his; Tor fumbled and nearly dropped it but managed not to.

“I want to evaluate your fighting styles,” Taz called, stepping back. “To do so, you will spare. I will count victories and stop you when it is time.” He clapped his hands once. “Begin.”

Startled, Micah and Tor looked at each other. They stepped apart, readied, and sprang forwards-

In Micah’s memory, the clatter of wooden practice swords turned into the silvery clash of steel blades. Metal scraped together as the swords almost locked at the hilt. He and Tor were fighting again, four and a half years later, to prove what they had learned to Taz.

“I’ll beat you this time,” Tor hissed, pressing down on the sword hilt. His face was inches from Micah’s. He didn’t beat Micah often, and he was determined to do it now.

“Only in your dreams,” Micah growled back, and ducked as he stepped backwards, disengaging their swords. The steel rang as the blades came apart. He could feel Tor assessing him, searching for weaknesses- although, they knew each other so well, there would be nothing new. He already knew all of Micah’s weaknesses, and Micah knew his.

They circled each other under the hot sun, tense, awaiting movement. Micah feinted a few times, but Tor didn’t fall for it.

He still did the foot thing sometimes, even though it was the first thing Taz had tried to correct in him. He wasn’t doing it now.

Micah let his sword tip drop a few centimeters, inviting attack.

Tor took the opportunity. If neither of them fell for obvious taunts, they’d be out here all damn day. The sword tip speared towards Micah’s shoulder. Micah parried; the sword blades hit each other with a rasping clang again and he felt vibrations travel down the length of his arm and into his hand. The thrill of the fight ran through his whole body. Every move was a calculated risk, planned or unplanned. Every quick movement of the sword could kill or open him to death. It was an exhilarating, deadly dance.

He and Tor were both lightly armored and wearing cloaks, fastened into their armor. Micah knew that Tor was easily distracted and unused to wearing an armor-cloak. He could use that. For his own part, he had to make sure he didn’t trip on the thing stepping backwards or sideways.

The cloaks weren’t necessary in the slightest. Taz had added them to handicap Micah, who fought nimbly and with a lot of swift movement that the flowing red fabric could interfere with. Tripping on it would most likely cost him the match if he wasn’t careful.

Tor’s lunge carried him past Micah; both of them twisted to accommodate for this.

They traded blows and maneuvers. Neither of them had anything in their second hand. Tor had earlier caught Micah over the brow with one gauntlet, drawing blood. That could handicap him too, if it dripped into his eyes. Better end it quickly.

Micah pressed forward. All he needed to do was use the cloak to draw Tor’s attention away, and then he could bind and disarm him. He could try to catch it on something…

The area they were in was the practice yard. Not many things to get caught on, except the wooden dummies at either end, and the occasional block of stone. Well, maybe one of those dummies would work. Micah gave up ground, allowing Tor to press him back towards the dummies, and got it so that they were on either side of one of the roughly cut and scarred posts. He darted around one side of it, keeping his feet out of his armor-cloak, and Tor did the same. Micah pulled back, and Tor darted forwards-

As hoped, the swirling red fabric of Tor’s cloak caught on the post and tugged. He looked back, just for a second, confused. Micah leaped forwards again and twisted his sword blade around Tor’s, lifting his wrist so that the pressure levered the hilt of the sword out of Tor’s grasp. Tor tried to tighten his fingers, but too late- the sword was already free. Micah heaved it to the side, sending the sword over the sand, and advanced on Tor, sword at his throat.

“I win,” he said, and lowered his blade.

Tor paused for a second, caught between confusion and anger. He looked down at his hand, over at his sword, then up to Micah, and his expression melted into a smile. “Damn,” he finally said, holding his hands up. “Again.”

Micah grinned back. “Go get your sword, it’s over there.”

“I know. I watched it go.”

“You sure you weren’t paying too much attention to your cloak?”

“Excuse me,” Taz called, across the yard. Micah sheathed his sword and hurried over; Tor followed after collecting his blade out of the sand and dust.

“Yessir,” Tor said, standing at attention. Micah, beside him, stayed silent.

Taz looked over both of them. “Micah,” he finally said. “I have a mission for you.”

“Sir?”

“Tor, I have a mission for you as well. You will not be going to the same place or doing the same thing. Micah, stay here. Tor, report to the captain of the guard immediately; tell him I sent you. He’ll know what I’m asking of him.”

Tor bowed to him and hurried off. Micah remained where he was. Once Tor was gone, Taz took a few steps closer to Micah and said, “We’re sending you out. You’re a trainee soldier, and your goal here is to assist your leader in any way possible. You’re heading out to an area we know has been hit by raiders a few times, by one of the Haunted Cities.” He put a hand on Micah’s shoulder. “Do your best. I know you will succeed in this.”

Micah was slightly confused, but nodded anyway. “Yes, sir.”

His troop set out two days later. Micah was given a horse to ride and instructions not to go anywhere he wasn’t supposed to and not to disobey orders.

They rode eastward for a few days, searching for any sign of the raiders. They passed a few small villages and hamlets that had been hit, and occasionally they’d see a raider scout. They killed a few of the scouts before they stopped appearing- the archers in the troop were best for this.

Finally they found the burnt-out husk of a town long abandoned. Gretta's Mill, it was called. The town was centered around a large mill with a water-wheel that had once turned in the river running through the town, probably grinding flour and cornmeal day in and day out. Additionally, the town was built on some much older ruins, ancient stone buildings from before the days of the kings. Micah’s troop dismounted and headed through the village. The burning was recent. Their leader, Captain Jasper, ordered them to search the area.

“What happened here?” whispered one of the men, glancing around a burnt doorway.

“This is worse than raiders,” Captain Jasper muttered. “This… I don’t know.” He gripped his sword hilt, moving slowly through the smoky streets. The bottom edge of his cloak swirled over the ashes, causing little flurries of gray flakes. Micah tugged at the hood of his own cloak nervously.

These ruins were too fresh, some of the embers still smoking. Something wasn’t right.

His instincts were correct. He heard the faint sound of footsteps above and whipped around in time to see a raider with a crossbow pointed at him.

The crossbow fired; Micah hurled himself to the side, and it bounced off the rock near him. “Ambush!” he shouted, rolling and springing up, drawing his sword.

The silent town exploded into action; raiders appeared out of nowhere, from hidden alcoves and closed doors. There was a ringing as most of the soldiers in the troop drew their swords. The archers, of which there were two, both mounted up and tried to escape. If they got far away, they could fire safely into the mess and not worry about getting stabbed in the back. One of the archers made it out of the ruins. The other never got onto his horse.

Captain Jasper shouted orders that Micah could barely hear. A raider jumped at Micah; reflexively, he stepped back and swept his sword in a parry in front of him. It knocked the raider’s blade aside. Micah realized that he did not have time to evaluate this man and decide how best to take him down safely. His job now was to kill the raider.

This he did, beating him back with a few strokes of the blade and slashing his inner arm to cause him to drop the sword. He followed that up by slashing the man’s stomach open, then turning away while the raider bled on the ground.

They were outnumbered. Micah put his back to his troop and fought as well as he could, frantically countering the raiders’ random stabs and slashes. Next to him, one of the soldiers he still didn’t know by name died in a gout of blood. Micah glanced over, stunned, and a sword tip caught him in the left arm. He yelped and stabbed in the direction of the blow. Someone else shouted in pain. He didn’t know if it was the raider he’d aimed at or one of his troop members.

Captain Jasper continued to shout, until his voice was suddenly cut off in a choking sound. Micah felt someone grab his arm. Captain Jasper had him; there was blood on his neck.

“Run,” he hissed to Micah, eyes wide, “and hide.”

“No!”

“Go. That’s… an order!” Captain Jasper gritted his teeth, using his other hand to try and stop the bleeding. “Hide!”

With that, he released Micah’s arm, shoving him towards an area that wasn’t so thick with fighting. Micah stumbled, but did as he was told, and ran. His arm was bleeding, and he was having trouble breathing, but he ran, stumbling over rocks and burnt wood and a few times bodies.

_God, help me. _The sounds faded behind him, clashing and screaming, and he found a building and ducked into it, then scrambled into the furthest rooms, carved into the hill. Here, perhaps, he would be safe.

He waited silently, free hand clamped onto his wound to stem the flow of blood. Slowly, the sounds outside faded away. The wound in his arm throbbed, and his sword was lying in the dirt, the red on it slowly drying to brown. It was going to be quite a mess to clean that off.

What a disaster.

He huddled in the darkness as the sounds died away. Finally there were only the occasional shouts of raiders to each other, and then even those died out.

The light from outside dimmed. Shadows crept around the rooms where Micah was hiding; he remained in shadow. Slowly the temperature dropped. His arm was throbbing, but the bleeding seemed to have stopped. He was still holding his hand over the wound. His entire body was cramped from sitting still for so long.

Eventually he tried to get up again. The movement tore at the wound on his arm; he grimaced and used his sword as a prop to get up.

As he hung his head, gathering his strength, something caught his eye. A gleam of light sparkled in the rubble, in the last rays of sunshine. He reached out and brushed aside a layer of dirt and stones and found, lying on the ground, a strange medallion. It was circular, but thick in the middle and thin on the edges- a fat disk. The edges were a creamy gold color, segmented, and the rest was black except for a tiny circle of light blue surrounding a tiny black dot at the center. Micah stared at it for a few seconds, lifting it out of the dirt, and then draped it around his neck on impulse. It hung there comfortingly, pleasantly heavy and warm to the touch, probably from the last of the sunlight. He touched it gently with a hand, then looked up and out of the building.

Night was falling. He had to get somewhere safe, or somewhere warm, or best, both. But that probably wasn’t going to happen. Where was everyone else? Had anyone made it?

He didn’t know, and he wasn’t about to go counting bodies. His sword was dirty; he wiped the blade mostly clean on the edge of his cloak, then sheathed it and pulled his hood up. It was getting cold.

The only way out was back the way they had come. Well, it wasn’t the only way out, but it was the only way he knew to go. A few of the ruined buildings he recognized, and used them as landmarks to stumble back to where they’d left their horses.

Abruptly, he tripped on something, and looked down to see Captain Jasper lying on the ground. He was quite dead. Micah stared for a second, and was about to move on, but something caught his eye- a paper sticking out of the pouch on the captain’s belt.

Carefully, Micah opened the pouch and pulled out an unharmed bundle of papers. It was too dark to read them, but he shoved them in his own belt pouch and kept moving.

As expected, the horses were gone. Micah resigned himself to having to walk back to Kathaka.

Wait. What was that? A rustling in the nearby underbrush on the hill. Micah drew his sword wearily, ready to face down whatever dangers were coming after him now, but the source of the sounds revealed itself to be a single horse, wandering around hopelessly in the darkness.

“Here,” Micah called, sheathing his sword again. “Here… er, horse.”

It stared at him, and he carefully crept close enough to make a grab for the reigns. To his chagrin, the horse didn’t even react when he snatched them. Alright then.

He mounted the horse and turned its nose towards the west. If anyone had survived the battle, hopefully they’d be on their way back to the city. None of the bodies he’d seen had been anywhere close to alive.

Micah spurred the horse onwards and rode into the darkness.

When the sun rose the next day, he took the opportunity to look through the papers from Captain Jasper’s belt pouch. He read through them thoroughly.

He stared at them for a long time.

Then he put them away and coaxed his horse into galloping towards Kathaka. He had business to take care of there.

Two days later, he rode the same horse through the streets of the city. People occasionally whispered to each other, looking at him- he did not care. He was still wounded, but more than that, he was furious.

He made it to the palace and was let in. Taz hurried into the yard as Micah dismounted and leaned against a wall. Someone took the exhausted horse away while Micah composed himself.

“Micah!” called Taz, hurrying up to him. “What happened? Where is the Captain- where are the other men? What hap-“ he paused, looking shocked. “You’re hurt!”

“Yes, I am,” Micah replied, trying to keep calm. “The others are dead.”

“What?!”

“All of them. Captain Jasper included.” Micah raised his head, glaring at Taz. “He had a set of very interesting orders, Taz.”

Taz’s expression changed slightly. “And those would be?”

Micah gripped his sword hilt. “You ordered us into a suicide mission. You knew there was a raider camp nearby. You _knew_ that they outnumbered us and you told us to go there anyway. You told Captain Jasper to take his men and lead them to death. You _knew._”

“I won’t deny that,” Taz said passively, holding up his hands. “But-“

“Why? Why- for what purpose?!”

“I needed to test you.”

“For what?”

“If you came back alive, you might be worthy of joining the guard.” Taz shrugged. “If you died, then you wouldn’t have been any good protecting the king.”

“You-“ Micah paused, composing himself. “And Captain Jasper knew he was going into certain death.”

“He is sworn to the king’s service, much like I am. He did as ordered. He died valiantly.”

“He died without reason!”

“He will be honored.” Taz seemed unbothered.

Micah glanced around. “Where’s Tor? Did you send him off to be murdered as well?”

“Oh, no. His mission was much easier than yours. I doubt he found anything more than a few stray bandits to deal with. He’s not your quality, but he doesn’t need to know exactly how mediocre he is.”

Micah stared at him. “If he were ‘better,’ would you have sent him to be killed?”

“If I thought he could survive such an encounter, like you obviously have, then I would have given him a more dangerous assignment,” Taz explained. “As it is, he returned yesterday, pleased with his success. And when I saw that you were returning, I sent someone to fetch him. He should be here any moment.” He smiled pleasantly. “Won’t it be nice to see him?”

“Do not try to evade this issue,” Micah warned. “Do _not_ try to make me forget about this. You signed those orders. You killed those men.”

“Men die in the service of the king.”

“You murdered them!”

“And you didn’t die with them. Welcome, Micah.” Taz smiled again. “You are ready to-“

“Stop!” Micah shouted, drawing his sword. “Stop talking!”

“Micah?” Tor’s voice, from the other side of the yard, where he’d just appeared. “What are you…”

“Micah, please. You’re tired, and you aren’t yourself,” Taz said soothingly. “Why don’t you-“

“Stop. Talking.” Micah advanced on Taz threateningly, and Taz’s hand flew to his sword.

“Micah!” Tor took a few flighty, halting steps forward, but slowed, nervous. “What’s going on?!”

“Taz sent me on a suicide mission,” Micah hissed, glaring at Taz. “Every other man I was with died. Raiders ambushed us in a mill. I barely survived. He knew they were going to die and he sent them to death regardless. They didn’t know about the raiders even though he did. There was a camp.”

“Perhaps you don’t have quite the same perspective I do,” Taz began.

Tor glanced between them. “Micah,” he started. “Taz has trained us for years. I mean… surely there’s got to be some reason for this.”

“I have his orders,” Micah replied. “Here.” He fished them out of his pocket and held them up in his left hand. “Read them.” He threw the orders down on the cobbles. His sword was still in his hand, but the tip pointed down. He didn’t want to fight Taz. The man had done something horrible, but… Tor was right. He’d trained them for years. Surely there had to be something they didn’t know…?

Tor inched close enough to scoop up the orders and read through them. He was silent as he did so, and finally he lowered them and stared at Micah. “This was a test for you?”

“So he says. He was _testing_ me to see if I would die or not.” Micah turned his attention back to Taz. “I did not. But I will _not_ condone this!”

Taz laughed. “Condone? You are to condone _my_ actions? Who is the superior here, and who the lesser?”

Micah stared at him for a few seconds, judging. After a moment he said, “I am leaving.”

“Pardon?”

“I am leaving. Do not try to follow me. Do not try to restrain me. I am leaving Kathaka and I will not return.”

Taz paused. “Tor,” he said after a moment, “reason with your friend.”

Tor glanced at Taz, then over at Micah. Finally, he said, “Ah…. Micah, where will you go?”

“Elsewhere.”

“How?”

“I will find a way. But I am not staying here. Not with someone who will commit such grievous sins without so much as a shred of remorse.” He stood where he was, unmoving.

Tor looked at him, then back at Taz. “Sorry,” he finally said, and took a step towards Micah.

Taz glanced to the side, where other guards waited. “I’ll have to hold you here,” he said.

“No.” Micah held his sword out at arm’s length, falling into a fighting stance. “Let us leave.”

“Do you really intend to fight me?”

“If I must. God forgive me for what I do.”

“I know all of your strengths and weaknesses. I know everything about how you fight. You know nothing about me. You have no hope of success.”

“No. I have the necessity of it.” Micah twitched his blade. “Let us go or draw your blade.”

With a sigh, Taz drew his sword and lunged towards Micah, who danced backwards immediately. His cloak nearly caught under his feet and he swore to himself, remembering that he could trip on the thing and this time, it might actually cost him his life.

Tor, to the side, watched with wide eyes. He had one hand on his sword, but seemed stunned and frozen in place.

Taz stepped back and circled. Micah assessed him, trying to find weaknesses, or patterns, or _something_, but nothing obvious showed itself. Taz was good. Taz had trained him- and knew everything he could or would do.

This had been a terrible idea. He danced backwards, and Taz’s sword caught his with a clash again. He had to think of a strategy, quickly, quickly…

Taz knew his weaknesses. Taz knew what he would normally do. Taz also knew how he would normally choose to trick his opponents… he had to do something that the old guard would never expect. Either something incredibly brilliant, or something monumentally stupid.

Brilliant was probably out of the question. So Micah turned and ran across the practice yard, full tilt, away from Taz.

When he reached the far wall, he spun again and saw Taz standing, befuddled, where he had been. He slowly advanced across the sand towards Micah, holding his sword to the side.

“What are you doing?” he said, staring.

Micah held his sword up, waiting. Come here, he thought, and turn your back on Tor.

Tor very, _very_ carefully began to draw his sword, sliding it out of the sheath slowly enough that it didn’t make any noise. Micah tried not to look at him, to avoid drawing attention away from himself.

“I will not cooperate with you,” Micah called, trying to keep Taz’s attention. “I will not aide someone who willingly murders his own men!”

“Micah, you know that someone in command must make decisions for those below him,” Taz called, still advancing.

“That wasn’t a decision that needed making!”

Tor advanced on silent feet. The guards, around the edges, were still watching Micah, who let his sword fall and then jerked it back up. The movement would draw their eyes away from Tor, and the slip-up would indicate to Taz that he was tired and making mistakes.

He was tired. But he wasn’t making mistakes.

“Micah. Listen.”

“I am done listening to you,” Micah called, whipping the sword point in a small circle. “I am _done_, I will _not_ fall prey to your insinuations any longer! I will not stand for your sins!” He’d had three days to think about Taz’s actions; the man no longer seemed like a mentor to him. This must be a lot harder for Tor.

“That wounds me,” Taz called back, actually looking shocked.

“Your actions wounded me already. I have no qualms about turning the same on you.” Micah raised his left arm, showing the bloodstained sleeve. He’d treated it as best as he could but he would still need medical attention from someone. Hopefully soon.

“Micah-“

Tor, behind him, lunged. One of the guards on the wall gave a shout, but he was too late. Tor’s blade caught Taz on the back of the hand; his fingers opened reflexively and he dropped his sword. Tor tried to kick it out of the way. Sand and dust flew everywhere in the resulting scuffle.

Taz managed to kick Tor’s feet out from under him and bring him to the ground. Micah ran forwards, worried that Tor might have a sword somewhere he wasn’t supposed to. As he neared them, Taz grabbed Tor’s blade and turned, aiming for Micah’s midsection. There was no stopping it-

The blade twisted aside by some unseen force. Taz yelped as his wrist bent at an odd angle and dropped the sword again. Micah, unharmed, knelt next to Tor and touched his shoulder.

“I’m fine,” Tor gasped, trying to get sand out of his eyes.

Taz picked up the sword again, this time with his off hand- his normal fighting hand was tucked close to his body, the wrist obviously damaged. He stood and jabbed at Micah.

Again, the sword deflected off nothing. It went to the side, and Taz’s lunge turned into a stumble.

_This can’t be happening,_ Micah thought, too startled even to glance down at himself. What…?

Taz tried to slash sideways at him. This time, the sword bounced off nothing and rebounded away. Micah took a step towards Taz, pulse racing. _He can’t hurt me._

“You can’t hurt me,” he murmured, staring his former instructor down. “Nothing you can do will even touch me.”

“How?” Taz hissed, backing up. His eyes glinted.

Micah wondered the same thing. What was this force that stopped Taz’s blade? It wasn’t anything Micah was doing. It was like some kind of invisible armor, or a shield, that could be neither seen nor felt… As if the hand of God were protecting him.

Perhaps it was, Micah suddenly realized. Taz’s actions condemned him. Micah, who was disowning him and those actions, was in God’s favor now. And he was guarded.

“I am protected,” he said to Taz, walking slowly forward. He lifted his sword and flicked it to clang against Taz’s. “I am protected by that which you have denounced. God Himself is watching over me. God Himself will keep me from harm.” He hit the sword with actual force, and sent it spinning from Taz’s hand. It hit the sand and lay there, half-covered, useless. Micah touched Taz’s throat with his blade and tipped the man’s head up.

Silence.

“Do not follow us,” Micah whispered. “Do not try to find us. I am leaving you with your life. If you fight me again, I will not be so merciful.”

He dropped his sword blade, staring down at Taz, then went and picked up Tor’s discarded blade. He returned the sword to his friend, then sheathed his own blade and gestured to the gate.

They left.

They hurried through the streets for a few minutes in silence. Finally Tor spoke up.

“Micah…”

“I don’t know,” Micah said immediately. “I don’t know how that’s happening.”

“You said God was protecting you.”

“I think he is.” Micah explained his reasoning to Tor.

“You’re chosen by Him, then,” Tor said, awed. “Blessed.”

Micah smiled grimly. “I suppose that I am.”

They’d fled Kathaka that day, using their money to take two horses. There were several small villages on the plains that would benefit from having a defender or two in their town- one of these hamlets welcomed Tor and Micah with open arms. On one expedition out into the plains, Micah came across a dead lioness outside her den.

“What happened?” asked Tor, who was mounted on a horse. Micah had dismounted to look at the lioness.

“I don’t know,” he started to say, before spotting claw- and tooth-marks on the body. “Wait. I think… she was killed by another lion.” He paused, trying to dredge up what knowledge he possessed concerning lions. “Likely… a male. She is probably a member of a pride… but a new male took over and she refused him. So she died.” He paused, glancing around. “If she had cubs, they are likely dead as well. How unfortunate.”

As if on cue, a faint mewling echoed from somewhere. Micah frowned and handed the reins of his horse to Tor.

The sound was echoing from a patch of grass which, upon further inspection, was covering a massive hole in the ground. It delved beneath a tree and Micah could only assume that it was a den.

Carefully, he lowered himself to all fours and peered in.

“Micah, don’t,” Tor called.

“I will be only a moment,” Micah replied.

“Micah!”

Micah crawled into the den. It was dark and musty, and it smelled like blood, although he couldn’t tell if that was the blood of the mother or not.

It wasn’t. There were three dead cubs in the den, two torn apart and one simply dead. Micah pursed his lips, staring at them in the murky blackness and wondering which one of them had been making that noise and just died.

His question was answered: None of them. The mewling started up again, this time very loud and very close, and Micah blinked in the shadows and spotted a fourth tiny shape curled up in the dust, mewling. A fourth cub, and this one alive. How had it survived when its siblings had not? Micah didn’t know. He did realize that the cub’s eyes weren’t even open, and that it was probably very newly born- maybe only born the day before, or earlier that day.

The poor thing was clearly the only survivor of this massacre. The lioness out front was likely its mother; the other cubs its siblings. The father could only be dead, if Micah’s theory was correct.

He made a decision, and reached out and scooped up the cub. It struggled, but he used one hand to clutch it close to his chest and the other to scoot backwards out of the den.

“Thanks be to God there was no other lion in there,” Tor started, and stopped when Micah stood and turned, revealing the miniscule lion cub in his hands. “What is that.”

“One of them was still alive,” Micah explained, pointing out the obvious.

“I… see that.”

Micah examined the cub. It was female, and her eyes were closed. Her fur was matted and dirty and fluffy all at the same time, indicating that she was extremely young. But she already had tiny, needle-sharp claws that dug into Micah’s arm as he lifted her to peer at her tiny face.

“I’m keeping her,” he decided.

“Micah, _no._”

_Yes_, Micah thought, and carefully cradled the tiny cub in one arm. “If you would hand me my reins, please.”

“This is really a very bad idea. Put it down.”

“If I leave her in the grass, or in that den, she will die,” Micah said patiently. “I can’t let that happen. I am going to take her with me.”

“It’s a _lion_!”

“She is _my_ lion.”

Tor shook his head. “She’s going to get large and kill you someday.”

“I doubt that.” Micah could not have explained his reasoning, but he was sure that the tiny lioness would bear him no ill intent.

Tor handed over Micah’s reins. Micah took them and, very carefully, managed to mount up. The horse’s nostrils flared at the smell of lion blood and it shied back. “Easy,” Micah said, and the beast calmed. The lion cub mewled again and drew blood on Micah’s arm.

“How precious,” Tor said sarcastically.

Micah didn’t respond. He turned his horse around and headed back towards the village.

The lioness he named Mjoll, and he took care of her despite all her attempts to dissuade him from doing so. He ended up with a good many scratches and scars on his hands and arms, but for his efforts he won Mjoll’s loyalty. She grew rapidly larger and within two years turned from a fuzzy, bumbling cub into a glossy-coated queen with golden eyes. Micah adored her; she seemed to be equally fond of him.

At first it was difficult to feed her, but once she grew large enough to hunt, Micah could take her out into the plains and let her loose. No matter how far off she ran, she would return to him, usually content, sometimes covered in blood, sometimes carrying part of a kill with her. The villagers were wary of the lioness, but they appreciated the meat that she occasionally gave them.

At some point, Micah wondered if she could support his weight. He gave it a try, attaching a horse saddle to her- she didn’t like it- and settling a few bags of horse feed on top of it. The saddle came off, but Mjoll faced no ill effects, so Micah set to work modifying the harness and soon came up with specialized tack that worked.

Tor tried to convince him that riding Mjoll could only lead to disaster. Micah did not listen, and began to teach Mjoll special commands for riding. She did not like it overmuch at first, but Micah persisted, and she grew amenable to the idea. She was intelligent enough that she understood what was going on, and as time passed, they began to work quite well together as a team.

For his part, Tor stayed on a horse.

Micah rode Mjoll out into the grasslands around their little village on patrol, her golden form almost dwarfing Tor’s horse. She was lower to the ground, but longer, and a good deal more deadly.

A few raiders were unlucky enough to draw Micah’s attention. Wanting to test Mjoll in battle, he spurred her forwards and charged them. One of them tried to fire a crossbow at him, but the bolt glanced harmlessly off his invisible barrier and away into the grass. Mjoll overtook the raiders, and Tor and Micah killed them both.

Of course, Mjoll could not have remained a secret. Micah was sought out by someone who- after finding Tor and pressing him for a bit of information- wanted him to help them with a rebellion.

And from there…

-

Micah glanced back into the castle. Mjoll was in the stables now, housed in a few stalls that had been combined to make a comfortable nest for her.

Another wave crashed into the shore. Micah pushed off the balcony railing and stepped back from the edge with a sigh. The sun was close to fading now.

He turned and strode back inside the main body of the palace, through a sort of anteroom that led out to the balcony. From there, he strolled through the halls until he reached the front, where he left the building and walked amongst the flowering plants in the garden.

A sound behind him. He turned, and saw Tor hastening towards him.

“Tor,” he said, somewhat surprised. “I had wondered where you had gone.” Tor had been oddly absent for the last two months.

“Hello,” Tor answered him, not actually answering the unspoken question.

Micah looked at him. He seemed anxious about something. “What is it?”

“Hm?”

“Something is bothering you,” Micah said, narrowing his eyes. “What is it?”

Tor sighed. “It’s-“ He paused, looking from side to side, then finally looked Micah in the face. His pale face was flushed and his brow furrowed. “You lied to me.”

“Pardon?”

“You lied.” Tor advanced a step, fidgeting, and abruptly put one hand on his sword hilt. Micah tensed slightly. “You said you were blessed by God. It’s not you. It’s never been you.”

“What are you-“

“It’s your amulet,” Tor said, eyes falling from Micah’s face to the amulet that glinted at his neck. “It’s that. You were shot when you weren’t wearing it. You aren’t chosen at all.”

How did he know about that?! “Tor, who-“

“_Everyone_ knows,” Tor snarled. “The King couldn’t hurt you because of your amulet. Anyone fighting him would have won if they had your magic amulet. You didn’t earn the right to be king.”

Micah stepped back, worried, and felt for his sword. As always, it hung by his side. “Tor…”

“You have _lied_ about what you are,” Tor hissed. “You have used God’s name for your own. You have no divine claim.” He drew his sword. “Others _do_.” His hand was trembling.

“What’s come over you?” Micah didn’t draw his sword; he hoped he wouldn’t have to. “I have not lied about anything that I am or am not-“

“Stop it!” Tor shouted, jabbing outwards with the sword. “Stop it!”

Micah said nothing.

“You can’t rule. The old king, his family was divine, they were appointed by God long ago and their blood runs pure. But you are not divine.” He paused, breathing hard. “We know this. We know what we must do.”

“Tor, _what are you talking about?!_”

“The queen will remain alive,” Tor continued, as if he hadn’t heard Micah. His eyes were unfocused, his breathing irregular; he stumbled over his words, forcing them out of his mouth. “But you… cannot. You tricked me into following you and you tricked these people into believing you could help them when you cannot. You are just another lying tyrant.”

Micah stared, shocked and confused. “I… what do you mean? I- I _am_ helping, or-“

“Really? _Really?_” Tor’s sword was shaking with him; he grasped it with both hands to steady it. “Where were your soldiers when the North Forest burned? Where was your army, sworn to defend the people, when Naeleran took the Heights and slaughtered their inhabitants?” He stood straighter now, and trembled less. “Off looking at some city. Some _haunted_ city. Why? Because you told them to. You told them to abandon your subjects and incite the wrath of _demons_ by disturbing ruins long lost!”

Micah stepped backwards again, closing his grasp around his sword hilt. He hadn’t known that Naeleran had gone so far as to take the entirety of the Heights from him… was it really that bad?

“Do you remember Taz?” Tor suddenly asked, voice dropping from a shout to a quiet conversational level. “Do you remember why you tried to kill him?”

“I never-“

“He sent his soldiers to death. So you attacked him, out of righteous fury. And you were right then. But now…” and here he stopped, and laughed. “Now _you_ have done the same. You sent your men into the maws of death, and they are gone. And you have no remorse.”

No. “That’s- that’s not the same at _all_. Taz knew what he was doing. He knew there were raiders in the hills that would slaughter my troop. The Haunted Cities are empty.”

“They are not! They are filled with the spirits of the dead, _which you know,_ which you have angered! They bring plague and raiders upon us and you sit here, poking through ruins and pretending to be a saint.” Tor’s sword no longer trembled. He extended it towards Micah. “You were right to attack Taz, though not right to spare him. Now I am right to attack you.”

“Tor, do not do this,” Micah pleaded. He was wearing the amulet- he’d be safe, and he could beat Tor- but he didn’t want to fight. This… Tor seemed to be determined to kill him. How could this have happened?

“I wish I didn’t need to,” Tor replied.

Micah reluctantly drew his blade. He backed away from some rosebushes, into an open area of trimmed grass. Tor followed him.

They circled each other. Micah was once again adorned with a cape, and he kept it in mind not to trip on the thing. At this point, he knew Tor would kill him, given the chance.

“You,” Tor growled, “and your damn _lion_ and your damn _amulet_ and- how long did you have it? Did you use it when training? Is that why I could never beat you?” He struck forward, feinting, and Micah tapped his blade aside. The sound rang in the open air. “It wasn’t me, was it. It was your amulet. Take that thing off, and see how well you do.” His eyes blazed. A challenge.

Micah reached up and touched the medallion, considering this. He knew his swordsmanship was phenomenal. He could probably beat Tor in an open fight.

Probably.

But now that he knew the amulet was giving him an advantage, it would be dishonorable to wear it. It would only prove Tor’s point if he kept it.

“Very well,” he said, and carefully lifted the amulet off his neck. Tor gestured to the ground with his blade; Micah carefully placed the amulet on the grass and stepped away.

“Finally,” Tor murmured, and sprang forwards.

Micah beat his blade aside, heart pounding. Tor’s bladework was as good as ever. He’d been practicing since they’d last fought.

What could have prompted him to this? Micah thought, as he danced backwards away from the flashing silver. Tor had been with him for so long- he’d fought Taz with him, escaped Kathaka, even joined the rebellion when Micah had. And why? Surely not only because of his blessing. Or, rather, the amulet’s blessing. They’d been friends before that, and Tor had fully supported the rebellion before it had ended. And Micah hadn’t seen him for a while…

It occurred to Micah that perhaps Tor loved the rebellion- but not the reason for it. Just the process of it. Just the exhilaration of charging into battle for a noble cause, fighting an evil enemy. And he was just as religious as Micah was- if he truly believed that the old regime were the divinely appointed rulers of Edrelle… it would make sense for him to turn on Micah.

Micah desperately wanted to believe that anything else was true. But, fighting to keep Tor’s sword tip out of his body, he was losing that hope.

He swung his arm in a wide arc, distracting Tor, and twisted the blade to come in underneath his guard. Tor anticipated this and parried. Micah brought his sword up, and the blades slithered past each other, stopping as the hilts cracked together.

“God forgive me for what I do,” Tor whispered, face inches from Micah’s.

Micah had no quick response for this. He just disengaged and stepped back again, wary. Tor also backed up, circling.

Micah assessed him. Tor’s stance was balanced; it would be hard to knock him over or stagger him. But perhaps… Carefully, Micah went sideways. Tor did the same, keeping Micah in front of him, and as he stepped he crossed his feet in an odd manner.

_You never learn_, Micah thought, and feinted several times, still going in a circle. Tor sidled to his right and, when he started to cross his feet again, Micah made a feint at his torso. When Tor brought his blade up to parry the strike, Micah redirected and caught Tor’s foot.

Tor’s expression went shocked as he twisted and went down. Micah whipped his blade up and slashed it across the side of Tor’s hand, over the thumb and pointer finger, and Tor dropped his sword. Micah kicked it away. It caught on the grass and ended up a meter away, pointing away from both of them.

Micah regarded the blood on his blade. His friend’s blood. He let the sword rest on the ground and stood there, breathing hard for a few seconds. Tor did much the same, but lay where he had fallen, stunned.

“I don’t want to hurt you,” Micah finally said to Tor, utterly sincere. “I don’t. Do not force my hand any further. For your sake.”

“I have to kill you,” Tor said, speaking plainly. “I- I have _orders_. The queen can live, but you and the princess have to die.” The silence that his words dropped into was heavy and still; he seemed to echo.

“Pardon me?” Micah’s entire body went cold.

Tor opened his mouth and shut it again.

Micah lifted his sword point from where it was resting on the grass. “I do not want to kill you,” he said, quietly, “but if you threaten the life of my wife or my _daughter_ I will. You have been a friend to me for a very long time. That will mean nothing.”

“The princess- she is tainted by your blood-“

“Who gave you orders?”

Tor rolled to the side suddenly, throwing out an arm to grab for his sword. Micah reflexively jumped back from the movement and cursed himself for it- if he could get to the sword first, he could kick it away again. But now it was too late- Tor had it, and was trying to crawl into a standing position. Blood ran down the hilt and blade from his wounded hand.

“Who gave you orders?” Micah repeated, advancing on him slowly.

“The people of Edrelle,” Tor replied. “They don’t want you to kill them anymore.”

“I’m not killing them!” Micah had to calm himself. “I’m not- who? Who was speaking for ‘the people of Edrelle?’”

Tor only laughed harshly and sprang forwards again. Micah dodged and swirled around behind him, flicking his wrist so the flat of the blade hit Tor in the shoulders. Tor stumbled and turned around, slashing at where Micah was, but Micah wasn’t there anymore- he backed out of the way again.

There were a few tense moments where Tor and Micah stared at each other, silent.

“If you do not kill me,” Tor finally rasped, staring directly into Micah’s eyes, “I will kill the princess and I will kill you.”

“Please.”

“It doesn’t matter in what order.”

“You are leaving me no choice.”

“I never had any to begin with. Why should you?” Tor lunged again.

Micah shifted his sword grip so that he was holding the hilt backwards in his fist, the blade pointing down. As Tor struck at him, Micah parried, but only slightly- he let Tor’s sword slide past his head, close enough to feel the air move- and as he did so, he brought the sword up to catch Tor under the arm, then stepped past him and let it gracefully redirect, using Tor’s throat as a fulcrum. He felt it as the skin tugged and broke beneath the metal.

Tor stumbled past, suddenly choking. Micah did not turn around.

“You-“ Tor couldn’t manage any other words.

Micah walked back to where they had begun and retrieved his amulet from the grass. He stared at the glossy black disk, then slipped it over his head again and let it rest comfortably against his chest. He was still breathing hard.

After a minute he turned and walked back to Tor, who was now lying still on the grass. Micah had slashed the vein in his throat which would bleed him dry in minutes. He was already unconscious, and very close to death.

Micah could have called for someone to help- one of the palace doctors, or Julis. Someone who might have had the skill to save Tor’s life.

But instead, he just stood there and watched his oldest friend die.

After a very long few moments, he dropped his sword on the grass and sat down with his back to the bushes. The sun began to fade towards evening, the light dimming. Micah tipped his head back and stared at the clouds. The sky, so brilliantly blue, paled to a sort of dusty periwinkle color, and then began to darken- light blue to cyan to cerulean. The smell of blood mixed with the faint fragrance of the orchids and roses, tinging the evening with copper and iron.

Once the sun was gone, the sky fell into a deep sea-blue and finally to a blue so dark it was almost black and Micah could see the faint sprinkling of bright white stars that always appeared at night. He also spotted the vague outline of the darkened sun, just a smoky circle in the velvety sky.

He listened to the crickets. They didn’t seem to care what had just happened. They were crickets; they never did.

Finally he stood. “I’m sorry,” he whispered, to the darkness, as he picked up his sword. There wasn’t anything else for him to say, so he walked away, back towards the castle.

He’d get some servants to pick up Tor’s body and clean it up, give it a proper funeral. He couldn’t do that right now. He had too much to think about. The aggression from Naeleran, the apparent raids. Were enough people angry at him that they’d somehow managed to start a movement? That was worrying, to say the least.

Suddenly, he had a flash of insight into how the old king must have felt when he’d gotten word of Micah’s own rebellion.

The first concerning matter: Tor’s animosity towards Micah, based on their difference in ability. Micah had thought perhaps Tor might harbor some kind of resentment towards Micah for winning so often, but he had no idea it was rooted so deeply that the only thing holding him in alliance was Micah’s blessed status.

Additionally, the ‘orders’ Tor had spoken of, and the mysterious entity who had given them. Someone was trying to have Micah killed, and not only Micah but Sofeir as well. That entity had some very… sound… reasoning on why Micah had to die. If the old regime was divinely appointed, and Micah was not, then he should be killed to allow the old regime to return to power. The worst part was that it made perfect sense when he considered that it was not him that was blessed, but just his amulet.

Although hadn’t he found the amulet? Hadn’t he been chosen by it, found it lying where no one else would have looked, in the dirt? Perhaps the amulet itself was the blessing, and he was its bearer. He had no way of knowing- who knew what God thought?

Then, there was the matter of Micah’s missing soldiers. The ones who had vanished exploring one of the Cities. Yes, they’d gone in on Micah’s orders… but he’d had no way of knowing that they would disappear. How could he have known…?

He knew the Cities were dangerous. That’s why they were abandoned- that’s why they were haunted. Because no one could survive in them. He supposed that he _was_ playing with fate, since everyone- including him- knew that the Cities were dangerous. So did that mean he had committed the same sin that Taz had? Sacrificing his men for no reason? Essentially sending them to their deaths for no reason?

Finally: His own willingness to kill Tor.

It occurred to him that he could have tried to knock Tor unconscious or take him in and imprison him. But instead, he’d accepted what seemed inevitable and ended Tor’s life.

And now his friend for many years, who’d stood by him through the entire rebellion and through his ascension to the throne, was lying dead in his garden, by his hand.

Micah caught a few servants and told them to take care of the body, then went and found a secluded area of the castle to clean his sword and think. Everything that was happening was troubling. He’d thought matters were… not the best, out in his country, but it appeared now that they were far worse than he’d thought.

Castles built on sandstone, indeed.

-

TRANSCRIPT OF A RECORDED TRANSMITTION FROM KHARAVANI PORT TO K2S SUBSET CORRIX WATCH ORBITAL STATION

KP: Port to Station.

COS: Station here.

KP: We’re doing what we’re ordered, but… don’t you think it’s a little extreme?

COS: What do you mean?

KP: I mean that our favorite king is having a lot of trouble right now because one of his countries to the north started breaking boundaries. We didn’t do that.

COS: That’s… not us, either.

KP: So that _is_ a natural development? Maybe we should ease up on what we’re doing down here. Those sicknesses are getting a little bit out of hand, and a lot of people know about Mr. Cyraxis’ supposed blessing from God. It’s the medallion he carries, it generates a malleable kinetic barrier that only stops what it deems to be threats- swords, arrows, punches. But not normal things like shaking someone’s hand. All just from the medallion. We don’t even have that!

COS: Technology more advanced than our own. Well, that’s certainly something.

KP: So I think maybe we should let up on the raiders?

COS: No.

COS: Tell me what happened in Corrix High Port.

KP: You already got the report.

COS: Just explain it.

KP: [sigh]

KP: Fine.

KP: About thirty of his men managed to get through one of the kinetic barriers we had up. A combination of recent rainfall and a lot of weaponry hurled at the thing shorted it out and they got through before we had it up again. So we trapped them behind it, because they saw a lot of citizens inside the barrier, and they know _way_ too much to be allowed back out into the laboratory.

KP: And by the laboratory I mean the entirety of Corrix that we’re using as one… whose idea was this?

COS: I know what you meant. Where are these soldiers now?

KP: We’re holding them. We have no choice but to integrate them into advanced society- it’s not like we can mind-wipe them. That’s not possible.

COS: Right. Well… how are they reacting?

KP: As expected. It’s going slowly. Although a few of them seem more accepting of the ideas than other ones. Maybe they’ve had some kind of experience we don’t know about. We’ll have to ask.

COS: Keep your thought processes to yourself, Port. That’s bad. We’re going to lose the experiment in this entire country if this keeps up. If soldiers can short out one barrier, they can do it again, and we can’t risk that. We’re getting rid of the new king; find a successor for him immediately.

KP: But- you can’t just do that! I need authorization.

COS: It’s sent. Find us a new king. It doesn’t matter what happens to the old one. You can assassinate him, or kidnap him and drop him on a different continent, or something. Just get rid of him and get rid of that advisor. Take the medallion and send it to Xovan Orbital for study.

KP: I… alright. You might not have much to do. There’s already a lot of turbulence in the populace.

COS: Then organize another revolution. We know you have some very persuasive operatives down there. You can instigate revolt. Don’t interfere too much, but aggravate. We’re returning your act instigation authorization. Get that king _out_ of here before he causes more trouble.

KP: Yes, but- there’s another problem.

COS: Oh, what is it now?

KP: He’s got a daughter.

COS:

COS: Damn.

KP: What do we do about that?

COS: We’ll get back to you on that. Maybe take her and leave her with some unsuspecting family.

KP: That’s just a hero tale waiting to happen.

COS: I… we can’t condone killing her.

KP: That’s right.

COS: But we can’t let her… take her. Take her away, if you can. Or just let the people deal with her.

KP: From what I’ve heard, they want to kill her.

COS: Oh. Well, steal her, then. Raise her in one of our cities, behind the barriers.

KP: I- if we can. We’ll… do our best.

COS: If everything goes pear-shaped, just… get whatever’s causing undue influence and get rid of it. And the king. Get rid of the king.

KP: We’ll do what we can.

COS: Good. Station out.

KP: Port out for now.


	28. Snowblind: Glacial Movement

Snowshoes and steep rocks did not mix well.

The gray sky overhead occasionally discharged a few snowflakes; they drifted down past Arkane’s face and presumably past Orca and Casey as well, somewhere further down the pathway.

There was almost no wind, which Arkane was grateful for, since the ‘pathway’ they were attempting to climb up was in fact a near-vertical climb with occasional stretches of mostly flat ground.

Orca, Casey, and Arkane had tied themselves together with rope. So far, no one had fallen off the cliffside, but Arkane figured it was only a matter of time before Casey lost his grip or Orca grabbed a rock that wasn’t sturdy.

(Keep going! You’re almost near the top!)

“Hibernia,” Arkane said patiently, “The last time you told me that was half an hour ago.”

(…of this portion of the climb!)

Arkane sighed.

There was a momentary pause. Then: (Epsilon says-)

(No,) Samath interrupted, causing a very strange sensation in Arkane’s brain. (Epsilon asked us to ask you when we would be done with this climb so that he can tell Orca because she asked him to ask us to ask you.)

“That certainly wasn’t convoluted,” Arkane murmured. They glanced up again. A snowflake melted on their goggles. “Hibernia, can you fly up and see how much more we have to go? Try and give me a good estimate of the distance.”

(I can do that,) Hibernia said, and flicked her wings. She vanished into the grayness above Arkane. Samath swirled around Arkane’s head for a second, then followed her.

Hibernia- along with the other stormfliers- had been growing at an impressive rate. Her size at hatching had been not even the length of Arkane’s palm; now, complete with tail, she was as long as their forearm, including the hand. Her barrel-shaped body with its graceful wings was about the size of Arkane’s head. She’d quadrupled in size over the past few weeks. The other stormfliers had done the same, although Samath remained smallest, and Epsilon was of course massive compared to the others. His strange patterns had grown even bolder, stark white on pitch black, the kind of black you could only see by looking up on the shadowside of a Ring, one facing away from any part of Rigel.

Samath now seemed like a mist-wraith, invisible if he floated silently in the winds. Arkane had used this to great effect, asking Samath to scout ahead when they weren’t sure if there was danger in the area. Nothing could see Samath’s tiny form in the clouded sky.

Of course, the sky wasn’t always gray. Occasionally it was a clear light blue, in which case Hibernia was a better choice- her light coloring had turned into a very interesting pattern of a light blue belly and a mostly whitish-gray top. She was camouflaged to fly at high altitudes, and she enjoyed doing just that immensely.

Zenith’s blue-gray had developed into a more whitish coloration, and the blue-gray now served to make her even more striking than she had already been. The blue accented the white and she gleamed like a snowcap.

A small rock bounced past Arkane’s face and down the cliff. Arkane glanced down, forgetting that that wasn’t the best idea, and saw Orca far below them. She jerked away from the stone as it clattered on the rock next to her hand and the rope jiggled around alarmingly. Casey, even further below, didn’t react as the rock made a near-miss past his head.

Arkane glanced up again. Chance rock fragment that had happened to come loose? Or was there something up there bumbling around and knocking pebbles around?

“What was that?” Arkane called up to their stormfliers.

(Not sure,) Samath replied. (I’m looking, but I don’t see anything.)

The source did not reveal itself until Arkane had passed through the section, the section after it, and reached the actual pass itself. They put their arms over the ledge top, pulled themselves up, and froze.

Sitting on the rocks not three meters away was a rock wyrm. Arkane never would have noticed it but for the fact that it moved to look at Arkane, head tilted comically sideways.

“Er,” Arkane said.

(There’s rock wyrms,) Hibernia reported belatedly.

The rock wyrm seemed to reach a decision regarding Arkane, and deemed them harmless. It screeched and hopped away.

“Okay,” Arkane said quietly. “Thank you, Hibernia, Samath, for your warning. Could you please alert Epsilon and Zenith, to alert Orca and Casey, that there are rock wyrms here?”

(I can do that!) Hibernia vanished again. Samath stayed with Arkane this time, hovering just over the edge of the cliff. The heights made Arkane slightly dizzy, but they tried to ignore it. They took a few breaths and unloaded the stormflier eggs from their back, setting the box in the snow so they could deal with it once Orca and Casey were finished with the climb.

Arkane glanced around, trying to find a suitable anchor for the rope. Once they located a sturdy rock, they walked around it once, stepped through the loop, and pulled it tight before untying themselves from the rope and making a more secure knot.

Then they returned to the cliff’s edge to help Orca and Casey up.

Orca was only a couple meters below the edge of the cliff. Arkane pulled on the rope and helped her over; she thanked them and turned to help pull Casey up.

He was a little shaky. “I’ve never climbed that much at once before,” he said, glancing back at the cliff.

“You get used to it,” Arkane assured him.

“Do you have to climb stuff like this often?”

“If I want to get somewhere that has a mountain range in the way, then yes.”

“Geez,” Casey muttered, staring out over the crags they could see from their perch.

“Reconsidering your ambitions?”

“What? No! I just need to get better gloves and maybe some climbing stuff. I didn’t know that before…”

Arkane smiled and turned away, heading back over to Orca.

“He having any trouble?” Orca asked.

“No.”

“Oh, good.” She bent to tighten the laces on one of her boots. “You know, he’s tougher than he looks. In that little leopard fur suit of his.” She glanced over at Casey with an amused smile. “You’d expect him to break like a twig under this kind of strain. But he’s alright.”

“Runners have to be tougher than they look.”

“I wouldn’t be a good one, then,” Orca sighed. “I’m exactly as tough as I look.”

“Which is sufficient for stormrunning, I’ve seen,” Arkane told her.

“Sufficient?”

“You’re doing a very fine job of protecting Casey and I, and the stormfliers. We haven’t been in much danger that we couldn’t deal with.” Arkane paused. “Well, apart from the incident with the whale.”

“You and the whale.”

“You have to admit my fears have a basis.”

Orca rolled her eyes. “Yeah, yeah. I know.”

(Arkane!)

“Yes?” Arkane called, glancing up. Hibernia swept down out of the snow and nearly knocked into Samath, flapping her ‘wings’ at the last moment to avoid it. Samath, for his part, went backwards in surprise.

(There are no more passes. But there is a…) she paused, then sent Arkane a series of images.

“Glacier,” Arkane murmured, understanding. “That’s a glacier, Hibernia.”

(Glacier. Okay.)

Arkane turned to Orca. “The route has us going up the glacier to Hallowtone,” they said, opening their storm watch and checking it. “It’s a bit of a hike, but… we’re nearly there.” They sighed and turned towards the stormflier eggs, which again they had laid in the snow off to the side.

Arkane turned back to the pass. “Well… we still have to get through the pass, up the glacier, and then through another, smaller pass. Past that we have another climb. Hallowtone isn’t on a mountain peak, but it’s very close. It’s on ice instead. There might be a pathway… I’m not sure about that. There should be a small house with some supplies just at the end of this pass, but I’m not sure when it was last stocked, seeing as no one ever goes to Hallowtone and a lot of people believe it doesn’t exist.” They deactivated their storm watch and lowered their arms, then looked up at the pass. “But… that’s not important. What is is that we’re almost there.”

(Is that a good thing or a bad thing?) Hibernia asked.

Arkane wasn’t sure.

There wasn’t going to be a storm for a while now, so it was safe to head out onto the glacier. The climb would take hours, especially because-

“So this will be easy,” Casey said, as they trudged through the narrow pass. “A glacier is just an ice river, right? So it’ll be slippery…?”

“No,” Arkane said. “This will actually be very difficult and dangerous.”

“Well, of course,” Casey muttered. “Nothing can be easy on Xovan! Oh no. That would be no fun.”

Arkane shot him a look. “Glaciers are riddled with cracks and chasms.”

“Crevasses,” Orca said.

“Right.” Arkane paused. “Hopefully we can find equipment in the stock at the end of this pass.”

“Equipment?”

Arkane elaborated. “Specialized equipment for climbing glaciers. We aren’t going to be going up a vertical glacier, but it is still difficult to climb on ice. We need crampon attachments for our boots to be able to stick in the ice, and we need rope to tie ourselves together. Also, each of us needs a set of ice axes and a crevasse probe.”

“What’s a crevasse probe?”

“It’s a telescoping pole that you can use to poke the surface of the snow to make sure there’s not a crevasse underneath,” Arkane explained. “Neither of you are trained in crevasse rescue. But with luck, we should avoid the kind of situation where that would be necessary.”

“Geez,” Casey whispered. “I… am frightened? I’ve never hiked on a glacier before.”

“First time for everything,” Orca said cheerfully.

Arkane led the way through the pass. As soon as it widened, they looked to both sides for a safe house, but didn’t see one. “Hibernia, Samath, could you please try to find the safe house that we need to access?”

(I can do that!) Hibernia chimed her signature phrase and jetted off to the left. Samath did the slow barrel roll which constituted an eye roll and serenely floated left.

Casey sent Zenith after Samath; Epsilon trailed Hibernia at a distance.

Arkane, Orca, and Casey stood in silence for a few minutes as the stormfliers searched. Arkane felt a little bit useless just standing there, but the stormfliers did a much better job of searching than humans on foot could.

“Found something,” Casey suddenly said.

“Where?”

She pointed left, just as Zenith came floating back. She circled Casey’s head once, then started left.

(I missed it,) Samath told Arkane dejectedly.

“Don’t worry, it’s fine,” Arkane said, raising one hand to the unhappy stormflier. Samath said nothing in response.

Hibernia and Epsilon came back from the right side, looking a bit guilty. (I went to the wrong side,) Hibernia reported proudly.

(We know,) Samath told her.

(I wasn’t telling you.)

(Arkane already knows.)

Hibernia did the barrel-roll-eye-roll thing and followed Arkane as they followed Casey and Zenith towards the safe house.

The safe house was a small building almost completely buried under the snow; it was a miracle that the door was still visible. Clearly no one had been this way in a _very_ long time. Casey stood by to let Arkane peer closely at the door, then kick at the heavy wood and metal until it opened.

Inside the safe house was only shadow- it seemed the electricity was out. That made sense, seeing as the wind turbine on top was buried in snow, along with the solar panels on the roof.

“Torch,” Arkane said quietly. Orca pushed past them, pulling a large flashlight out of her belt, and flicked it on. It illuminated a standard safe house- a few questionable-quality beds, a fireplace, food stores. Arkane didn’t want to go near the food stores.

Orca briefly flicked the light up, checking the color of the ceiling. It was white, and she said, “Oh, good,” before carefully setting the light so it was pointing straight upwards. The light reflected off the ceiling and illuminated most of the safe house in a sort of murky half-light.

“Thank you,” Arkane said to Orca, who nodded.

True to expectations, there were numerous small cupboards with the necessary equipment in them spaced around the building. Arkane found the crevasse probes they were looking for, along with the crampon attachments and strong silk rope.

Casey brought one of the crevasse probes over to Arkane to look at. They carefully slid it out to its full length and gave the floor an experimental prod. The pole did not bend- it was very strong.

“That will be more than sufficient, I hope,” Arkane murmured, carefully sliding the pole back into its small form.

Orca fitted the crampon attachment over her boots and pulled the buckle tight. “We need these. Right…?”

“Yes,” Arkane affirmed, and put their own on. Given that they ordinarily needed them, they had their own pair- it was designed to fit perfectly over their own boots. To do so, they had to take the snowshoes off, which meant that actually getting _to_ the glacier’s edge would be slightly harder. But at this point there was less snow than rock and ice, so the snowshoe attachments weren’t that useful anyways…

Casey had a bit of trouble finding a crampon set that was small enough to fit the boots of his snow suit, but eventually Arkane uncovered a small box of child-sized crampons and handed one over to him.

Lastly, Arkane uncoiled the rope and tied some around themselves, lacing it also through their pack and around their body in a kind of makeshift harness. They handed the rope to Orca, who did the same, and passed it onto Casey- now, they were all linked together. Arkane gathered up the generous amount of slack rope and hung it loosely on their belt. Casey held the slack between him and Orca.

“So we just… go?” Casey asked into the silence, sounding a bit dubious.

“That’s right,” Arkane affirmed. “Take one of those poles. Orca, you as well. We have come too far to be caught in a crevasse now.”

“Right.” Casey adjusted the egg box on his back and took one of the poles in the cabinet. It was lightweight, aluminum and steel, strong enough to support someone’s weight. Arkane kept the one that had been handed to them; Orca fetched her own. All of them turned and headed for the door, closing it after they exited.

The sky was threatening, but at this point Arkane knew enough about the out-of-control atmospheric regulator to trust the storm watch. It wasn’t going to snow any time soon.

And so they began.

The glacier twisted slowly past a few impassable peaks; it was the only choice of route for this part of the journey. Arkane knew they should stay near the edges, to try and keep away from the deeper crevasses, and was nervous that they’d miss one and fall to their death, although this particular valley glacier wasn’t known for being particularly filled with crevasses.

Still, there was no point in taking chances.

The length of the glacier they had to traverse was small- it just happened to be that glaciers were massive, and Arkane progressed at a snail’s pace because they wanted to make sure that they weren’t stepping out over thin ice.

Much like the incident with the whale, Arkane was frightened of the ground beneath them giving away. Only instead of a whale breaking the snow, it would be only Arkane themselves. And then they’d fall-

_No_, they thought to themselves.

(No what?) Hibernia asked, eavesdropping just behind Arkane. She had dropped down to float next to them, and was listening.

Arkane shook their head. “Nothing.”

(I know you were thinking something.)

(I heard it too,) Samath chimed in.

“Both of you?”

(You can’t lie to us,) Samath said.

Arkane sighed, and switched over to silent speech, which- albeit a lot more difficult and headache-inducing than normal speech- was better for this kind of conversation. (I’m frightened of dying,) they said after a few moments.

(?)

(The snow could break and I could fall to my death,) Arkane explained. (In a crevasse.)

(Falling isn’t a problem,) Hibernia stated, confused.

(It is for me. I lack the ability to fly,) Arkane pointed out yet again. (You do not.)

(Oh. Right.)

Samath bobbed down by Arkane’s head as well, doing a thoughtful sort of tilting motion that rocked him back and forth. (But you have the others to help you,) he finally said.

(Pardon me?)

(Those ones.) Samath spun around once. (Orca and Casey.)

(Oh.) Arkane nodded. (I tied them to me, so if one of them falls, we can pull them up.)

(But if you fall, they will pull you up.)

(I… well, hopefully,) Arkane said, smiling. (Although they’ve never attempted this sort of maneuver before, so I hope we don’t have to test that theory.)

(Arkane!) Hibernia backwinged furiously and flew into their face, waving her wings erratically and forcing them to lean backwards. (Stop! Stop-stop-stop!)

Arkane froze. (What is it?)

(I can feel the air,) Hibernia whispered. (It’s below you.)

A crevasse. (Which way do I go?)

(Backwards. Go back.)

Arkane took a few careful steps back, almost bumping into Orca, who let out an annoyed noise. Arkane held up a hand and stepped backwards, forcing her back as well.

“What are you doing?” Orca called, obviously confused.

Carefully, Arkane pulled out their pole and brought it out to its full length, then prodded the snow in front of them. It went down for a few inches, then broke through an ice crust and moved smoothly. Arkane swallowed their fear and held up one hand, palm up; Hibernia settled into their palm, resting her belly in the gentle curve Arkane’s hand formed as she had done when she was small.

“Thank you,” Arkane said out loud, their voice muffled by their respirator.

(You’re scared,) she commented. (I don’t like that. Don’t be scared.)

“You probably have just saved my life,” Arkane told her. “How did I ever run anywhere without you? I didn’t think we were to any crevasses yet… we have to be more careful.” They paused. “I have to be more careful.”

From there on out, Arkane kept their pole out. Hibernia and Samath skimmed low over the snow, trying to detect air currents and see if they could feel any open spaces below the snow. They discovered a few more crevasses and steered clear.

Arkane had their group tacking diagonally up the glacier’s surface when there was a high-pitched yelp and Orca suddenly shouted. These calls were accompanied by a soft crackling and thumping sound. Casey had blundered into a crevasse and broken through to the empty space below. He was scrabbling frantically at the ice on the edge. Orca was hauling on the rope, trying to hold him up; Arkane found themselves rather pulled as well.

They dropped their pole in the snow and hurried over, then pulled on the rope as well. “Dig your crampons into the ice,” Arkane called.

“I can’t!” Casey shouted back. “I can’t touch it with my feet- I’m too far from the wall! I can’t touch it!”

This was problematic.

“Samath, tell me what it looks like under that ice,” Arkane called through gritted teeth, as both they and Orca held the rope fast. Arkane’s boots dug into the snow and crunched there; if they tried to do this for too long, they’d slip and Casey would probably fall and maybe even drag the others down. At least his he’d caught the ice as he had fallen, and he’d found a bit of purchase digging his fingers into the snow.

Samath darted past Casey through the opening and into the crevasse. A moment later, he sent a picture back to Arkane.

Casey was caught in the middle of an open area. It was a horrible miracle that the ice had broken- it was fairly thick. But Casey had nothing to hold onto, so the only way to get him out was either to have Orca and Arkane pull him out, or to break the ice around him so he could reach the wall and climb out himself.

Orca yelped suddenly and Arkane’s attention was redirected. She had wrapped the rope around one wrist and was trying to anchor it with her own body. Casey’s struggles were pulling the rope taut around her hand.

“No, don’t,” Arkane said after a moment, distressed.

(Break the ice,) Samath said, reading Arkane’s mind and making a decision. (Take the rope when he falls.)

Arkane did not question their stormflier’s ideas. Instead, they stepped forward and stomped down on the ice, trying to break it.

“What are you doing?!” Casey yelped, pulling his hands away.

“Please stay calm,” Arkane told him, scrutinizing the ice. They stamped down again and the ice cracked; grabbing the rope, Arkane kicked again and part of the ice fell away. Casey fell, his handholds gone, and swung forward, shouting incoherently.

“The wall,” Arkane called to him. “Use the wall!”

(He can now.)

Casey kicked out and abruptly some of the pressure was relieved off the rope. Orca used her other hand to haul on the rope as well, eyes narrowed behind her hair and scarf, and Arkane gave it all of their strength. Together, they pulled Casey up over the edge, and he lay on the snow, gasping for breath.

“Are you alright?” Arkane asked, kneeling beside him.

“That was the worst thing that’s ever happened to me,” Casey gasped, staring at the sky.

“At least you didn’t fall,” Orca said cheerfully, but her voice sounded a little pained. Perplexed, Arkane glanced over- she was unwrapping the rope from her wrist, moving it gently. She hissed slightly as she did so.

“Are _you_ alright?” Arkane asked her.

“Mostly fine,” she said. “I bruised my wrist. But I’m okay.” She glanced back at Casey. “You worried me there.”

He looked away. “Sorry.”

“Don’t do it again.” She reached down with her uninjured hand to help him up; once he was standing, she punched him on the arm and shook her head.

They continued up the glacier with far less incident. The stormfliers scouted ahead and found spaces under the ice where it was too thin to walk, and helped Arkane and their team navigate the most dangerous areas.

_How did we manage to do anything without the stormfliers?_ Arkane wondered at one point, glancing up to see Hibernia sailing far overhead, scouting for predators.

(There are more rock wyrms along the edge of the glacier,) Hibernia said after a few minutes. (They’ve been following you. They got excited when Casey fell.)

(Not exactly encouraging,) Arkane murmured to themselves. (Thank you for the warning. Do they seem territorial or defensive?)

(No. More curious than anything.) Hibernia gave Arkane a brief, dizzying image of the view from above. Silvery forms crept around on the rocks nearby- the wyrms.

(Keep an eye on them.)

(I’ll keep more than one eye on them!)

Arkane turned their attention back to their current position. Their storm watch map was blinking- they were nearing the area where they had to leave the glacier behind and continue on the mountain paths up towards Hallowtone. There was also a safe house where they could stay for the night before embarking on the final section of the journey.

“We’re almost clear,” Arkane called back to their team, shouting to be heard through their mask. “We’ll leave the glacier soon.”

“Good!” Orca called back. “The sooner we get off this glacier, the better!”

Arkane couldn’t agree more. (Hibernia. Any danger in the pass ahead of us?)

(Nothing that I can see right now. Do you want Samath to check?)

(Yes, that would be nice. Four eyes are better than two.)

(Okay!)

The wind was blowing bits of snow into the air; it was a bit difficult to see where they were going. Arkane brushed their hair away from their goggles and peered at the sides of the glacier. There was supposed to be a large rocky outcropping that marked the exit from the glacier route…

There. Arkane signaled to their team that they were turning and headed for the side of the glacier. The stormfliers swept back and forth in the air above them, silently chattering amongst themselves. Samath floated above the snow in front of the team, searching for crevasses, but the way to the exit was safe.

It took twenty minutes to reach the exit, and Arkane felt the difference immediately when they stepped from snow-covered ice to snow-covered rock.

“We’re safe,” they called back to their team. (Tell them we’re good now,) they added after a moment to Hibernia. There was no way Orca and Casey could understand Arkane’s words through the wind and their mask, even though there wasn’t as much wind in the exit pass as there was on the open glacier.

A few turns in the trail led to a small safe house, looking just as unused as the one that had been at the base of the glacier. Arkane tried the door and pushed it open, then gestured to Orca to use her flashlight. She pulled it out and set it up again, letting it reflect off the ceiling and illuminate the safe house.

Casey came in, then waited while the stormfliers came bobbing through the door after him. Once they were all in, he closed the door with one foot and leaned against it.

Arkane shifted their goggles up to their forehead and pulled their respirator down. “Well, that was stressful,” they commented, sighing.

“Yeah,” Casey agreed vehemently. “I almost died!”

“You were fine,” Orca growled, pulling her scarf down and rolling her eyes. “We had you the whole time.”

“Well, maybe, but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t scary!”

Arkane untied themselves from the rope and gestured to Orca and Casey to do the same while they argued. Once the rope was free, Arkane coiled it up and placed it on the counter. Perhaps they’d need it, perhaps not.

(Is there a storm coming?) Samath asked, floating gently to next to Arkane’s head.

(Probably,) Arkane answered, frowning. They checked their storm watch. There would be one in a little bit, and their team needed a bit of a break. They’d wait this next storm out here and head up the mountain later.

They were so close to the end now. Arkane took their gloves off and lit a fire in the fireplace area to warm the room. Hibernia and Samath hovered next to their shoulders affectionately.

Orca took her gloves and coat off, and Arkane hurried over. “Is your wrist hurt?”

“Not really,” Orca said, pulling her sleeve back to reveal her wrist. It didn’t look badly injured, but there was a ring of bruises forming around the joint. Orca grimaced to see it.

“That could be problematic,” Arkane said softly, taking her wrist. “Bruises can’t be fixed, and these could indicate that you’ve strained the joint somehow or weakened it. If that is the case, further trauma could dislocate your wrist.”

“I think it’ll be fine,” Orca reassured them. “But thanks for being concerned.”

“You’re part of my team. Of course I’m concerned.”

Casey suddenly made a squeaking noise and leaped off the couch where he had sat down. He hurried to the door, picked up the box of eggs that he’d left next to it, and pulled the door open to set the eggs against the wall outside.

“Don’t want more of them hatching,” he said nervously, turning back to Orca and Arkane.

Arkane dropped their hands, releasing Orca’s wrist. “Of course. I’m not certain we would be able to deal with any more stormfliers.”

(But we’re wonderful,) Hibernia said, sounding almost legitimately distressed. Evidently Zenith had said something amusing as well, because Casey snorted loudly. Epsilon wiggled in the air slightly and bumped into Orca’s shoulder.

Arkane shooed both of their teammates towards the fire. “We’re going to stay through the next storm, and perhaps overnight. Then we’re heading up to Hallowtone- it should be only a day’s walk from here.”

Casey opened his mouth, then closed it again. Orca, frowning, said, “What then?”

“I don’t know,” Arkane answered honestly. “We probably stay there for a few days, and most likely I’ll return to….” they paused. Ceos was still under Shadowside control- they couldn’t go back there. “Hmm. Tyto Colony needs a stormrunner, don’t they?”

“You’d come back there?”

Arkane shrugged. “I don’t see why not.”

Orca looked delighted. “What about Ceos?” Casey asked.

“It’s not safe right now. Perhaps once we get to Hallowtone, we can ask them for an order to mobilize a few forces to take it back from Shadowside.”

“Right,” Casey said doubtfully.

Arkane smiled. “We’ll figure it out,” they said, gently patting Casey’s shoulder. “For now, we should rest. The last part of the journey will be difficult.”

They turned away and moved to the window. Outside, the storm descended, dissolving the outside world into an unending swirl of white snowflakes.


	29. Interlude - Homeworlds: Kh-nk

The khavvichthi hail from the relatively small world of Kh-nk. Kh-nk is the fourth planet from the sun, in a system of seven and two asteroid belts. Between Kh-nk and its sun- which is a young to middle-aged yellow main sequence star called Vknhmx, which translates most accurately to ‘Radiance’- there are three planets and one asteroid belt, resting between the first and second planets. Beyond Kh-nk, there is another asteroid belt and three more planets.

The first planet is called Khklkhah (Shadower). It is a relatively large gas planet, composed of hydrogen and helium, given a steely gray color by a small percentage of sodium in the upper atmosphere. The large, oddly dense gas planet spins wildly in a close orbit around Vknhmx. Its orbit occasionally carries it in a path that eclipses Vknhmx from Kh-nk’s view, giving it its striking and ominous name.

Between Khklhkhah and Hxhktchitkk is a small but still noteable asteroid belt, composed of over a billion chunks of rock, most ranging from three meters to one hundred fifty meters in length with quantities of dust and pebbles floating alongside.

The smaller second planet is Hshktchitkk, which means ‘Lightning’. It’s vaguely similar to the Sol system’s Venus: a desolate rock planet with a high-pressure atmosphere composed mostly of methane, hydrogen, ammonia, and sulfur dioxide. The planet has no water or ice, and is wracked by constant electrical storms and covered by acid clouds, making exploration—even unmanned mechanical EVAs or remotely controlled space-to-aero drone flights—a hazardous and unattractive concept. The planet’s name comes from the fact that storms can grow large enough for lightning to be seen from Kh-nk’s surface when the planet is viewed through a telescope- the planets are frighteningly close to each other, though they are spinning around Vknhmx at rates that mean they are nearly always the same distance apart, and thus have no danger of growing closer to each other and affecting each other’s gravitational fields. Kyzm, while between Kh-nk and Hshktchitkk, is usually nowhere near the other two planets, and does not have a hand in this odd interaction.

The third, fourth, and fifth planets in Kh-nk’s system are all capable of supporting carbon-based oxygen-respirating life, although Kh-nk is the only one with any sort of advanced sentient species. The third planet, a lovely developing world called Kyzm (Water), is home only to vast oceans with algae, microscopic life forms, and some simple arthropods, although algae and some early mosses have started to creep onto the land and the crustacean analogues are sure to follow soon. The fifth planet, called Thklinh (Wind-song), is nearly three times larger than Kh-nk, and is dominated by forests and plainslands. There are several khavvichthi colonies on Thklinh, but not many, as the atmosphere is less oxygenic and filled with more carbon dioxide, making it hotter and somewhat harder for the khavvichthi to survive. There is still a higher than average concentration of oxygen.

Thklinh’s colonization efforts have been slightly set back by the rate of meteor impacts from the asteroid belt that rests just beyond the planet’s orbit and periodically bombards the planet with rock fragments. It’s theorized that the belt was a planet, but during the protoplanet phase the formation failed due to a secondary planetismal and the proto-planet disintegrating, leaving a trail of rock fragments in a roughly circular orbit. The asteroid fragments have an average diameter of between two and two hundred thirty meters. The theoretical planet that the fragments came from has been named Fxnich, which translates to ‘Relic,’ in reference to its disintegration long before the evolution of the khavvichthi as a species.

The sixth planet is another gas giant, hydrogen-helium with traces of chlorine and argon in the atmosphere, giving it a deep forest emerald tint. The planet’s name is Tihltkithxm, which means either Gemstone or Green-star, depending on the translation. The name itself could actually be a combination of both of those words, or in a dialect that no longer exists.

The seventh and final planet is a wandering ice dwarf called Zhvfihfzrs, or Seeker. It was found long after the others were, as it is very small and its orbit is an erratic and ever-changing oval shape, and advanced telescopes were necessary to even detect its presence in the night sky of Kh-nk. The planet is covered in methane ice and has no atmosphere to speak of.

Kh-nk itself-- the fourth planet, pronounced Kih-nik - is fairly small, although within the same general size category as Earth. Its gravity is fractionally lesser than Earth’s, not enough to make a significant difference in the development of advanced species. The surface is covered by numerous indistinct ‘continents,’ a term that refers to either a large landmass or an area of patchy shallow seas permeated with islands. Counts can range anywhere from thirteen to forty-six based on who you ask. Many of them change as the society of Kh-nk is a clan-based system and the globe has yet to be accurately charted, although a fyaeiarnae company is offering to map the continental plates to settle the matter entirely. Additionally, there are mistakes in translations from different dialects, and not all khavvichthi maps are current. To further confuse the matter, it’s not clear if a name belongs to a country or a continent, since the khavvichthi don’t have set countries, just landforms and territories with extremely malleable borders.

The most widely accepted map lists twenty-seven named ‘continents’, each containing various territories or just ‘unclaimed’ land. The following is a rough list of Kh-nk’s continents.

  1. Shnathhsi
  2. Hthkafht
  3. Flthflkm
  4. Ahneh Ivz
  5. Xihcfzii
  6. Sifnz
  7. Ithivvh
  8. Hif
  9. Ih-s
  10. Sikzhk
  11. Hithxtakihmk
  12. Ikrhsimv
  13. Famcthivx
  14. Oknnt Iszlf
  15. Fnnikhh
  16. Scokth Msz
  17. Thfvhzis
  18. Zfk Zimfih
  19. Vhevihe
  20. Fhio
  21. Frthkn
  22. Khfkzsrh
  23. Sthvsx
  24. Xhfthk
  25. Thrhexth
  26. Xhtxifhxi
  27. Thstvhzihmfxhea

Twelve of the ‘continents’ are in the form of a very large, rough circle spanning half the planet. Part of the circle is open to the ocean, though overall the entire mass looks something like a massive bay. The rest of the continents are scattered haphazardly throughout the planet’s oceans, though one of them (Frthkn) is partially covering the geographical northern pole of the planet, making it a cold and slushy marshland as opposed to the normal humid bogs of Kh-nk. Much like Earth, the magnetic north and south poles of the planet are mostly aligned with the geographical poles, producing auroras at the north and south ends of the planet and protecting Kh-nk from excess radiation. The field of Kh-nk is weaker than that of Earth, however, meaning that the creatures that evolved there have to have thicker skin or carapaces to deal with the weak amounts of radiation that make it through the atmosphere and to the surface.

This is, perhaps, the reason that non-arthropod creatures did not manage to grow large or create or an advanced society- part of the survival strategy to stay away from Kh-nk’s radiation is to remain underground, in tunnels and nests. Any species unable to access the surface would have been similarly unable to create an advanced society as the khavvichthi have done due to lack of resources.

Fortunately, they were still able to grow and develop amongst the giant nonvascular plants and swamps of Kh-nk. Originally the species was very small- being fungivores, they could not grow very large while being hunted by larger predatory creatures. Additionally, the khavvichthi require a lot of oxygen, as they are carapaced arthropods who breathe through structures similar to spiracles and book lungs for a respiratory system rather than lungs like mammals and other earth creatures, meaning that the oxygen content of their atmosphere had to be extremely high for them to survive. It was (around 41%), but unfortunately that meant that wildfires were also common, due to the combustibility of oxygen.

Despite these limitations, they progressed past the point of fire, past the point of the internal combustion engine, to the point where they had large computers and could sequence and manipulate DNA. They then realized they could genetically engineer themselves to be better- stronger, longer-lived, larger- and immediately did so, increasing their size from about that of a football (soccer ball) to their current average size, which is nearly a meter tall at the tallest.

The technology they used to manipulate their genetics was new; the concept of doing so was not. The bioengineering of the khavvichthi began long before they learned how to manipulate their DNA. When they were a simpler society, they consciously selected for the largest members, those most capable of defending themselves. Every member of the khavvichthi species is highly intelligent, making their intellect nothing special on their homeworld even as it is admired throughout the rest of the galaxy.

So when they could change things more quickly, they only needed to improve size and strength, as their lifespan, agility, and intelligence were already improved. At first, it was only select subjects who were altered, and their offspring reaped the bounty of their bravery. But after this became commonplace, as the entire species was transforming into the larger version of its former self, the khavvichthi began to split into different factions.

Prior to this schism, the khavvichthi had existed as a relatively small population on one continent, evolving in a rather small area. When they learned to build ships and advanced transports, they could travel further, but not much- their small size severely limited what they could do. When the khavvichthi species altered itself, it split based on what certain khavvichthi valued- clans now are descendants of those khavvichthi that formed their own groups based on what they thought was the most important quality to exhibit in an individual.

Some thought it was physical prowess; some thought that khavvichthi should be separated into castes based on what each was best at doing, some thought that each individual khavvichthi should have every possible skill and be ready to learn and perform nearly any task.

More still based their small societies around age, teaching young khavvichthi certain skill-sets and transferring them to different ones later on in their lives, eventually cycling them through every different type of task (craftwork, hunting, engineering, medicine) and finishing the cycle with government and lawmaking at the end of the khavvichthi’s life, meaning that each had an entire life’s worth of experience behind its decisions, but also meaning that khavvichthi cannot choose when they want to take a certain job and there are no younger khavvichthi in government.

Aboard the _Amelia_ frigate, the khavvichthi Kthfthkthir comes from a clan where both intelligence and physical prowess are highly valued; older members of that clan set extremely high expectations for younger members. Additionally, khavvichthi in general are extremely proud of their historical changing of their own species; the ability to move quickly and perform physical tasks is something that every khavvichthi regardless of clan knows they did not originally have and knows they should be grateful to have. Therefore, attributes that show physical weakness are extremely shameful, hence Kthfthkthir’s reluctance to show itself in public after its leg injury and subsequent replacement.

Khavvichthi continue to be—as they were before their alteration—a trade-based society, each clan trading goods and services to the others. The clans are separate enough that they are beginning to differentiate, but not nearly to the point where they would be counted as differing species. Different clans tend to have differing colors or markings; sometimes a khavvichthi’s origin can be determined purely by looking at its markings, or lack of markings. The markings are many colors- pink, brown, blue, dark greens and blacks, occasionally creams, yellows, or whites. These colors are more prevalent now that the khavvichthi are a larger species that does not have to constantly hide from predation in order to survive.

Many still bear the original colors of the species, a black base with dark green or brown tints and rare lighter markings. Some have purposefully moved away from the camouflaged appearance and now show off such remarkable patterns as bright yellow-white stripes or an entirely lightened carapace, appearing blue or green instead of black. A few of the more northern khavvichthi, in an effort to emulate their chillier environment, have selectively bred their clan to be strikingly black, white, and brown.

Despite the differences between clans and their opinions and views, they still coexist peacefully and maintain standard trading agreements with each other. Conflict between khavvichthi is not common due to their bodies, which are not naturally inclined towards battle. In fact the different clans will sometimes trade members if a khavvichthi is not satisfied with the values of the group in which it lives, and the clans as a whole will work together in order to solve larger issues that affect the species as a whole or maintain the trade routes. Additionally, as an effort to reduce the damage that wildfires can cause, the khavvichthi have taken to clearing the vegetation from large swathes of land between inhabited areas. The lack of vegetation, while appearing ruthless and stark, actually does prevent the spread of the larger fires that may break out.

Should a fire begin to rage out of control and head towards a territory that is inhabited, the khavvichthi can always alert those in the area using radio messages and by broadcasting warnings over the internet to every open access interface in the endangered area. Failing that, however, they always have the fallback of using the old light towers that were built around the older parts of the world.

Due to Kh-nk’s active volcanic past, lava tubes and tunnels can be found with massive crystals in them, often colored with imperfections of various minerals. These crystals- and their pure clear versions - can be harvested and were before the invention of radio broadcasting. They were used to create powerful, directed beams of light that could be pointed towards another light tower, the color of which could be altered using different disks of polished, colored crystal. Different lights meant different things, and the color disks can be quickly and easily removed or placed in to alter the color, so messages can be conveyed by changing the colors of a light beam rapidly.

While ingenious, the towers were only partially effective, as Kh-nk’s rich and fairly humid atmosphere was often hazy or cloudy, blocking the light from reaching as far as the other towers. Despite light being able to travel far distances, the towers were built close to each other, and the towers are only in the area in which the khavvichthi evolved, as they only spread out after they had developed the technology for instantaneous communication via their version of the internet and no longer needed the light towers. The technology would be far more applicable in a desert environment, such as that of Ferolus, or the canyonlands of Thell Vyrne. Other races that visit Kh-nk admire the light towers, and a few vikyrelle have adopted the practice and are attempting to use it to communicate messages between the far-flung villages in the canyonlands and deserts, but as the vikyrelle either live in tall trees or deep canyons, it isn’t working as well as it could.

While the khavvichthi live in small clans, they are relatively stationary, meaning that they often build farms for the fungi they consume and permanent buildings for homes and public meeting places. They lack a centralized global government, and clans are ruled locally- so even though they are relatively stationary, the borders between lands are changeable and often altered. This is the reason behind much of the map confusion- despite the khavvichthi being relatively peaceful creatures, occasionally they will attempt to expand their borders purely by saying they now occupy or own certain areas, disregarding anyone else who may say otherwise. They are somewhat obstinate and stubborn, and will not change the maps back when challenged, making Kh-nk something of a cartographer’s nightmare.

Kh-nk rests roughly two and a half months’ flight at FTL speeds from Iridere.


	30. Shadowside: Corrix

Cendrick paced back and forth, muttering under his breath.

He was not safe. He needed to get out as soon as possible. The situation was escalating; he couldn’t afford to remain where he was. And he was fairly sure everyone knew who he was, anyways.

He had to make a call to Morpho.

That required finding an area where no one else was around, which was rather difficult to do. _My _ship_ feels less crowded than this,_ Cendrick thought distastefully to himself. His ship’s crew was small. Usually he could find privacy. But not here.

He set up the communications terminal in an empty room, surrounded by boxes and crates. It was a storage area of some kind; a room away from everything else. A perfect place to have a conversation without anyone _butting in_.

The terminal took a few minutes to establish a connection, routed from the small unit Cendrick had through his ship and to Morpho, back on Kalyrio.

“Cendrick. How nice to hear from you.” Morpho’s voice was as calm as ever.

“Hello again, Director,” Cendrick said, itching to get straight to the point. “I- ah- I have a request to make.”

“Speak.”

“I wish to be removed from my current station.” Cendrick glanced over his shoulder. Was someone coming? No. “I have to pretend to be a… a _medic_ here. I’m not a medic! They all _know_ I’m not who I say I am. Everyone knows. I have far overstayed my metaphorical welcome.”

“And your point is?”

“I’m in danger here.” Cendrick realized his voice had risen slightly, and lowered it again, crowding closer to the small console. “_Someone_ is going to do something. I’m going to end up killed if I try to keep this up. Yes, I have the goodwill of-“

“You are not going to leave,” Morpho interrupted, cutting him off. “Your mission is of utmost importance.”

“I know. But there’s…” he paused. “I mean…”

“Speak.”

“Are you sure the risk doesn’t outweigh the reward from this? If we alert the authorities, we’re really going to have to face some rough charges. We are technically an organization that can be held responsible for this…”

Morpho sighed. “No, we are not,” she said, and Cendrick froze.

“Er…. I beg your pardon, Director?”

“Should you fail in the mission, I will instruct every member of Shadowside to erase you from our records and cease to acknowledge your involvement with us. You will be viewed—by us and by the everyone else involved—as a lone operative working under your own motivation for your own reasons, and you will face charges and punishment alone. I will not jeopardize the entirety of my organization for one agent.” Morpho’s voice was smooth, but there was a sharp, vicious undertone that made Cendrick shiver. “You will only have Shadowside’s protection if you succeed. If you choose to abandon the mission, you will subsequently be cut from the organization. I may have to send someone after you. Is that clear?”

Was Morpho threatening to _kill_ him if he failed?! Cendrick paused, unable to come up with anything to say in response to that.

“Cendrick. Is that clear?”

“I- errr. Yes, Madam Director.” Cendrick stared at the console, mortified. He’d always been on Shadowside’s list of top agents. He’d never had to face something like this. He’d never been in danger of failing a mission before… he hadn’t realized this is what happened to those who did. “I- I understand.” This was not good.

“Good.” Morpho shifted on the other end of the comms; Cendrick heard her sigh out a weary breath. “I’m glad to hear that you understand the importance of your task.”

Was this really worth it? Cendrick swallowed. Scientific advancement was one thing, but scientific advancement at the cost of his own life was entirely another.

Everyone around him was growing wary, and the situation was growing ever more volatile. He was a point of suspicion. He was not anyone’s favorite person; he knew that the next time he did something odd or unusual he’d either end up thrown in a holding cell of some kind or dead. He couldn’t hide his Shadowside status for much longer… that woman was too intelligent. She’d figure everything out soon enough, if she didn’t already know.

“I do, Director,” Cendrick said, mind racing. “Thank you very much. I will… continue my work.”

“Good. Is there anything further you have to ask me? Or can I get back to more pressing matters?”

Cendrick winced. “Nothing more, Director,” he mumbled. “I apologize.”

“Accepted. Go.”

The connection cut out. Cendrick sat there for a moment, shaking slightly, then slammed the console closed and compressed it into its small, portable form.

Morpho did not have him covered. Shadowside did not have him covered. If the situation exploded, like he assumed it was going to, he would be in deep trouble, with no way out and no one to help him.

This was not what he had expected to happen.

What could he do? What could he _possibly_ do?

“I have to get out,” Cendrick muttered to himself, drumming his fingers on the console. “I have to get out… without Shadowside’s help.”

Could he take his ship? It had been given to him by Shadowside, but that was a long time ago, and the crew knew him now. Would they be willing to betray the organization to save Cendrick’s life? They hadn’t been around when he’d been dropped off for the start of the mission, but he could contact them now if he needed… and he did need it.

Carefully, Cendrick crept to the door of the room he was in and poked his head out. Voices echoed through the halls, but no one was in sight. Good. He pulled his head back in and closed the door behind him, returning to the console.

It unfolded neatly and sat there. Cendrick’s heart was racing as he opened a new communications link and tried to raise his ship.

It took three or four tries, but they finally answered.

“Cendrick, sir?” One of the communications secondaries. “We haven’t heard from you in quite some time…”

“Yes, I know.” Cendrick glanced over his shoulder nervously. “Listen. I am going to need an extraction, very soon. Preferably as soon as possible.”

“Err…. is this sanctioned by Shadowside?”

“No.”

There was a brief, tense pause.

“Yes, sir,” the secondary said, and Cendrick couldn’t tell if there was relief or fear in their voice. “Well. We can do that.”

Cendrick let out a breath. “Good. I’ll need you to find me as soon as the _Amelia_ docks again and pick me up, probably from the port. I might be elsewhere on the Ring, I don’t know. It all depends on where I can get when I choose to flee.”

“The next time the _Amelia_ docks....”

“Within the next few days. As soon as she sets into port, you need to come and get me.”

“Yes.” The secondary tapped something into a console on their end. “We can pull you out, sir. You’ll just have to get away from everyone else without raising any suspicion.”

“I’m already suspicious, but I think I can escape,” Cendrick muttered. “Thank you very much. Once I’m on board, we’ll need to be leaving the Rigel system as soon as possible.”

“Of course, sir.”

“Good. I will call you when I’ve reached a safe area to be collected.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Cendrick out.” He cut the connection and sat there for a moment, on the floor, just breathing. He hoped the call hadn’t been tapped, but the communicator he was using was specifically designed not to operate in normal frequencies, so that any other ships in the area wouldn’t be able to detect his outgoing and incoming messages.

Now he just had to get to safety. Easier said than done…

First he had to pack everything in a very quiet manner, so as not to alert anyone else. He had to make sure everything essential to him was ready to be taken at a moment’s notice.

There wasn’t much. And he could easily get ground transportation once his ship was ready to pick him up. Carrying luggage and travelling wasn’t going to be a problem.

But he had to make absolutely certain that he wasn’t discovered between now and then. Which meant he had to keep up the damn ‘doctor’ act. He sighed. Just because he knew something about medicine and first aid didn’t meant he was a scientist or a doctor. It just meant that he knew how to survive. And yet, here he was, helping keep people alive…

Better to begin preparations. He was getting out of here.


	31. The Amelia: Xovan Orbital

It was extremely difficult to get a visual of anything in space; distance was hard to judge, and things seemed small. You had to be close to see.

Scanners worked at long distances, but they could be deflected and tricked.

So the only thing that indicated the presence of the ghost ship was its strange emission puffs. Raleigh had been recording them ever since she’d first seen the ship. Were they all from one ship that was tailing them? They had to be. Raleigh pulled all of the patterns up and started layering them, comparing them and trying to see if they matched.

They did. She couldn’t find any significant differences in the patterns- there were small variations, but those were all explainable by cross-referencing them with the _Amelia_’s own emission records. They were caused by things like the ship shifting sideways, or speeding up or slowing down. The _Amelia_ was different than this ship, but….

Could she use the variations to pinpoint a specific model of ship? If the _way_ those differences in the emissions changed when the ship executed those actions were specific to a certain model, she could do it…

Charis walked by behind her. Raleigh almost froze, but didn’t- what she was doing was important. She knew it- that ghost ship had been tailing them for far too long to be a random occurrence. There was a pause in Charis’ footsteps, then she turned around and came up behind Raleigh.

Determined not to seem like an idiot, Raleigh kept working. She could do this- she could figure it out. And then go through the registry of ships that were in the Rigel system, searching by model… and once that was done, she could find which were approved for hypothetical stealth technology and _maybe_ if luck was with her and the system wasn’t illegally tacked onto the ship and she was good enough she could narrow it down to a single owner.

And figure out what the hell they thought they were doing.

“Raleigh,” Charis said. Not a question, not an order.

“Yes, Commander?”

A sigh. “Don’t- Can I talk to you for a minute?”

_You are talking to me,_ Raleigh thought, but did not allow herself to sass her commander. “Ummm. Of course.” She minimized her newest project and clasped her hands in her lap.

Charis came around the chair and leaned against the console bank near Raleigh. She stood there for a minute, then looked down. “I wanted to apologize,” she said finally.

“What?” Raleigh was taken aback.

“After… after Averan. I was short with you and I shouldn’t have been. I’m sorry about that. I wasn’t seeing things from your perspective.”

Raleigh wasn’t sure what to say. “Uh- I…”

“Oh, just accept it and move on.” Charis was still looking away, arms folded. “This is embarrassing.”

“How?”

“I was wrong.” She frowned; her braid was draped in front of her shoulder, and she pushed it back, annoyed. “I was wrong and it was stupid. I hate it. That doesn’t happen very often and it’s… belittling.”

There were another few moments of silence. “Thank you,” Raleigh said finally, staring down at her hands. She found herself relieved somehow. “I suppose.”

“Look,” Charis said gently, unfolding her arms and glancing over. “I shouldn’t have sent you out after that anyways, or let you wander off alone. Well, not alone... that’s not the point. Doctor Tessana said-“

“It’s my fault,” Raleigh broke in. “I thought I was fine. I-… I wasn’t. So that’s on me, really.”

“… no one could have predicted that someone would set the cavern on fire and blow it up,” Charis said, shrugging. “So… we both could have done things differently, but we didn’t, and it wasn’t your fault, and it wasn’t mine.”

That was comforting to hear. Raleigh nodded and found herself smiling. “You’re right…”

“I usually am,” Charis scoffed. “And when I’m not… I’ll fix it.”

Raleigh glanced up and caught Charis’ smile. Both of them looked away.

“So what are you doing?”

“Oh!” Raleigh pulled her emissions up again. “I thought maybe I could use the emission variation patterns of the ghost ship to pinpoint its make and model and trace the chain of identity backwards to who might own it.”

“…what?”

“Err-“ Raleigh paused, trying to simplify. “Uh, basically, I can find the owner.”

“No, explain it to me.” Charis leaned on the edge of Raleigh’s chair, narrowing her eyes to see the screens of Raleigh’s station.

Raleigh paused, organizing the process in her mind. “Well… when the ghost ship moves- like when it shifts sideways or accelerates a little bit- there are little patterns in its emission puffs that aren’t big enough to register as problems from another scanner but can be easily identified as normal. If I can construct a good- model? Yeah, model. A good model of the little movements, I can compare the model to records of the movements of ship types with a search that matches generic patterns and then narrow it down by myself. If I can pinpoint an exact model of ship, I can search the directory of ships within the Rigel system for all that have entered with that model. From there…” she shrugged. “I can try to rule out most merchant and passenger ships and try to find out which one might be tailing it by going through public records of where it may have docked. I know it doesn’t include ships that come in illegally in other ships’ jump trails, and there’s a good chance that our ghost tail is one of those, but it’s worth checking anyways.”

Charis was silent for a moment, observing the wiggly emissions patterns on the screen. “Wow,” she finally said, nodding. “If that works, I’ll be really impressed.”

“Umm…”

“I’m saying that it’s probably really hard,” Charis clarified quickly. “I doubt anyone else would even think of trying this.”

“Pssh. Vari’s probably already tried it.” Raleigh rolled her eyes.

Charis laughed. “Hah! You think?”

“Well…”

“He wouldn’t think of that. He’s lucky he thinks of monitoring his _own_ ship’s emissions, let alone that of the ghost ship and every other ship in the system, apparently.”

“I’m not _monitoring_ those, I’m taking other people’s records-“

“Let me compliment you, Raleigh,” Charis interrupted, holding up a hand. “And insult Vari. Two for one! Look at that.”

Raleigh paused for a moment, unsure of how to respond to that. “Oh- um- thanks.”

Charis nodded. “Right. You’re welcome.”

Something on Raleigh’s screen blinked. “Oh! Hold on a sec,” Raleigh said, before concentrating on the screens. She brought the window up- it was a proximity alert for their next destination, Xovan Orbital. The alert had been sent from the cockpit. Attached was a message, reading: “Do your job, nerd.”

Raleigh frowned for a second, then leaned back in her seat- displacing Charis as she did so- and shouted to Vari, “Are you reading my screens?”

Silence. Raleigh scanned the deck; there was nothing from Vari.

She sighed, sitting forwards again. “He’s reading my screens.”

“He’s annoyed that you thought of this before he did. I told you.” Charis reclaimed her spot, leaning on her elbows. She was grinning. “He’ll give you credit for it, but he’s annoyed. Mostly at himself, don’t worry.”

“I can’t really… picture Vari being annoyed at anyone else,” she said honestly. “Except maybe you. Oh, and Misalu.”

“Oh, Lord, him and Misalu.” Charis rolled her eyes and tipped her head back. “Remind me to leave the room whenever they get within a half mile of each other.”

Raleigh paused, considering the length of the ship.

“Don’t do that. Don’t do that in your head.”

Grinning, she minimized the proximity alert on her screen and brought up her secondary flight controls. She pinged all the secondaries, warning to let them know that they were needed, and the ones that weren’t yet at their stations sprinted in a few seconds later and scrambled to get seated. Raleigh almost laughed at this; a few of the secondaries viewed Charis with wide eyes. She raised an eyebrow at them.

“Do they seem scared of me?” she asked, a question that surprised Raleigh for a moment.

“Umm,” Raleigh said, and looked around. “…maybe, yeah. I can see why?”

“Why?”

“You’re a very intimidating person.”

“Am I?”

“You wear battle armor, like, half the time. And you’re the boss of the entire ship. And you’re, able to kill a man sixty different ways. Yeah, you’re intimidating.” Raleigh shook her head, focusing on her screens. She saved her emissions project and slid it into a side screen, leaving it up so she could work on it while the _Amelia_ was docked.

“Huh.” Charis paused. “What’d you just do with that thing?”

“The project? I put it over there. I didn’t close it though, no worries.”

“Why not?”

“So I can work on it while I’m on the ship. While she’s at Orbital.”

Charis paused. “I’m altering the VI again,” she decided, staring up. “To let you have access of the shore again. It’s part of the ‘that was an unpredictable event’ thing. You’re free to go ashore again.”

“Wait- really?”

“Yes.”

“Well… thanks,” Raleigh said, smiling. “I’m not sure what I’ll do at Xovan Orbital, but… it’ll be more interesting than staying here. All I did here was run data and play flight sims.”

“Flight sims? You already fly a ship.”

“I don’t fly the ship… and they’re not, ummm, they’re not cargo sims. They’re fighter sims.” Raleigh was slightly embarrassed about this. “It’s just- you know, just a thing.”

“Uh-huh.” Charis seemed amused. “Of course.”

“I like them!”

“I’m not judging you. We all play games.” Raleigh almost questioned this, but Charis paused, putting a hand up to her ear as someone shouted into her comms. “What?” she snapped, then sighed. “Look, I’m not-“

A pause.

“So maybe I am. Sue me.”

Pause.

“Fine! Fine.” She rolled her eyes and turned back to Raleigh. “_Someone_ is getting cranky that I’m monopolizing your time when you have a job to do. Which you do.”

“Yeah,” Raleigh agreed. “I wasn’t going to bring it up, but…”

Charis laughed. “You’d better patch on in to the comms and keep him satisfied. I’ll go hang over his shoulder instead.”

Raleigh nodded. “You do that,” she said. Somewhere in her mind she remembered that Charis was her superior and she probably should be more official and polite to her, but at this point (since she hadn’t been reprimanded for it yet) she wasn’t going to bother.

Charis pushed off the back of her chair and strode off, down to the cockpit area of the bridge. “Hey,” Raleigh heard her say, as she vanished.

The eavesdropper was off. Raleigh left it that way and patched herself into the main comms.

“About damn time,” Vari growled. “Nice of you to show up to the party.”

“Sorry, sir,” Raleigh sighed, rolling her eyes. “I was… busy.”

“Uh-huh.” He paused, muting himself for a second. The sound came back in time for Raleigh to hear what could only be indignant spluttering from Charis. She wondered briefly what he had said to her regarding their recent exchange.

“Alright, secondaries,” he called. “Orbital, if you don’t know- which you _should_ at this point- is on the other side of Xovan. The shadowside, and it’s attached by a load of little supports. The docks are on the outer edge, on the sides, since Xovan’s rotation provides half artificial gravity and the rest is simulated. So we’re going over the ring and to the side, and here’s the thing. We can’t orbit while we wait- we have to hover in one spot. So that’s for all of you to take care of while I handle docking procedures. Raleigh, I’m expecting you to keep these ruffians in check.”

“Yes, sir,” Raleigh said tiredly, shaking her head.

“Ruffians,” muttered another one of the secondaries. “I say!”

Raleigh stifled a laugh.

“We come aboard a _respectable_ ship and are called _ruffians_, while we have jobs that we went to _distinguished universities_ to learn how to do-“

“Station Gamma, _stop_,” Raleigh ordered, giggling.

“Gosh, sorry,” the secondary reported back. “Am I being too _raucous_ for-“

“Please!”

“Alright, alright.” He relented and fell silent.

Raleigh brought the external camera array up on a few of her side screens, just so that she could see what was going on. The _Amelia_ was currently curling around the side of Xovan- she’d gotten started not a moment too soon. The Core’s light was streaming down on the dazzling lightside of the Ring and Raleigh wondered what it was like down there. Xovan was cold and snowy, right? With storms. That much she knew. Doing it now so she didn’t forget later, she queued up a codex search for Xovan and set the results aside to read later.

The _Amelia_ came in sideways to the massive space station. Xovan’s shadowside was dark, black and gray fading to lighter gray at the edges. The parts of Orbital that caught the Core’s light were as dazzling as the lightside of the Ring it was attached to.

“Alright, secondaries, get ready. I said hovering, but we’re really going to be hovering in geosynchronous orbit. So you’re going to be moving us very slowly.”

“Got it,” Raleigh confirmed. “Everyone ready for that?”

“Of course we are, boss,” the crewman at Theta called. “We were born ready.”

“Hans, please,” sighed the secondary at Beta.

“Alpha ready,” Raleigh reported. “Gamma, Delta, you handle orbit tracking and positional maneuvers. The rest of us will make sure the ship stays where you tell us to.”

“Roger that.”

Out of habit, Raleigh checked the shields. They were fine. She switched over to the ship controls and waited patiently.

He switched out of the main comms; Raleigh flicked on her eavesdropper, listening.

“This is the T.F.S. _Amelia_ to Xovan Orbital Docking Management, requesting permission to approach. Our arrival is scheduled twice over, the primary date advanced to secondary.”

A moment of silence. Then:

“Greetings, _Amelia_. Your approach is approved. You are slotted for bay A-118, on the north polar end of the station.”

“Thank you very much, Management.”

“A quarantine team will meet you in the dock for a mandatory inspection and decontamination procedure,” the voice over the link continued.

“Wait, what?”

“My apologies, _Amelia_; Xovan Orbital recently implemented a new disease prevention policy that requires all new arrivals to undergo quarantine and cleaning prior to boarding the station, due to an outbreak of a nonlethal but irritating airborne viral disease. That disease has been eradicated, but measures have been put in place to prevent such things from happening again.”

“Within three years, no one here will have an immune system,” Vari muttered. “Alright, alright. Fine.”

“A decon chamber will be set up outside your ship to screen all crewmates that exit or enter the ship.”

“Anything else?”

“No,” the voice said, and sighed. “Do you agree to these terms?”

Raleigh checked the controls. The ship was staying where it was supposed to, subjets working furiously to keep her still. But she was cooperating.

“Terms accepted,” Vari said tiredly.

“Then you are clear to approach and dock. Notify your crew of the change in procedure to ready them.”

“Will do, Management. Thank you again.”

“Of course.”

The link broke. Vari sat there for a second and sighed heavily. “Why doesn’t anyone tell me these things beforehand? Why can’t we have a single stop on this trip where everything goes smoothly and nothing crazy or unpredictable happens?”

“Ferolus went smoothly,” Charis pointed out. She was still in the cockpit.

“_You’re_ not helpful.”

Raleigh laughed. Vari patched himself back into the bridge comms and Raleigh switched her eavesdropper off.

“Alright. Secondaries, we’re headed for bay A-118 towards the north polar end of the station. It’s not far from where we are, so we’re in luck there. And now let me just…” there was a pause, and he switched in into the main ship-wide comms. “Okay, folks. We’re coming into dock, but- and be warned about this- there’s a little bit of a change to the plan. Nothing too big, I promise. Orbital’s got a new policy and we’re all going to get decontaminated when we leave the ship or enter it. Don’t shoot the messenger; nobody told me this beforehand and I’m just as annoyed as I’m sure some of you are.”

“_Bugger_,” said the crewman at Gamma vehemently.

“So we’ll deal with that when we dock. That’s just a forewarning. Until then: landing positions, everybody.”

He swapped back over to the bridge comms. The _Amelia_ spun in place and fired her engines, sweeping back around the northern polar end of Orbital and orienting herself to come into the dock at the right angle.

The docks were small, each holding only one ship- but there were a ton of them. “Why are there so many docks?” Raleigh asked out loud, curious. “Why only one ship?”

“Orbital is prepped for scientific mistakes,” Vari answered her. She jumped, having not expected an answer. “Mostly, the docks are closed and there’s air, and each individual dock is sealed off from space. But they can flush a dock instantly to get rid of… anything in it. We’re not in one of those; we’re in one of the multiple-ship docks. Those can still be closed to space though.”

“Yikes…”

“Right.” Vari cleared his throat. “So let’s head in.”

They brought the _Amelia_ in and waited outside the bay door while it was cleared inside and depressurized. The doors were opened, and the _Amelia_ sailed gracefully in. Raleigh listened in on the docking procedures again. They were extremely similar to the ones used on Ferolus, on Averan, on Kalyrio, on Harbour…

Only this time, he sat there and waited until the shore raised the ship. “_Amelia_ here,” he called.

“Quarantine crew approaching. Stand by while the ship is sprayed.”

“We were just in a vacuum!”

“Fungal spores can survive in a vacuum, sir,” the man on the other end said respectfully.

“I didn’t just come from Variket, you know.”

“Sir, I’m just doing my job.”

Vari sighed. “Fine. Sorry, do your thing.”

“Yes, sir.”

The bay was pressurized again and a crew came in to wash the _Amelia_’s hull and get rid of anything that somehow might have been clinging to her. Then they set up a gate and Vari let the crew know they were safe to disembark if they were fine with getting decontaminated when they left and returned.

“Last thing,” Vari said. “The station is cool. Really cool. It’s a neat place. So I’d go see it if I were you, because I know I will, and the ship’s safe here. Just don’t go messing around in any of the labs.”

With that, he shut the comms off.

“You leaving the ship?” Charis asked, through the eavesdropper which Raleigh- out of habit- had immediately flipped on again.

“Maybe. I do like Orbital. I’ve been here a few times.”

“I know. I was there.”

“Oh, right.”

Raleigh decided that with her new-found freedom she was going to explore Orbital. She’d keep her comms on her and open as always, but she was definitely going to wander around and check it out.

A lot of the crew members had the same idea. As soon as the _Amelia_ was safely stowed in the dock, they left their stations, collected anything they wanted with them, and headed out. Raleigh went with them. A small platoon of them ended up standing together in the decon chamber, being sprayed with a fine mist that had no odor but a faint chemical taste; Raleigh wrinkled her nose and tried to spit the taste out, only succeeding in coating her tongue in mist on accident.

Once allowed out into the station, Raleigh wandered off on her own. Orbital was huge- the main atrium looked disorientingly out at Xovan’s shadowside via a gigantic window that spanned almost the entire length of the station. The window was an actual window—made from shatterproof plastic and reinforced with carbon nanotubes and metallic support sectioning. Nothing short of a direct hit from a dreadnought shell could destroy that window. And even if it were destroyed, Orbital could be sectioned in seconds, meaning that someone hit a button and walls would slam down between sections and prevent an unexpected depressurization from causing as much damage as it could. Additionally, the window was equipped with numerous little nozzles that- in the event of a break- would immediately spray out an instantly-hardening foam that would block up the break unless the entire window were demolished. So people inside, if they had something to hang onto, would have a better chance of surviving.

The main atrium looked amazing. There were planters with various things growing in them, including several fleshy-leaved, vining plants that had somehow managed to spread tendrils upwards and were attaching themselves to a light fixture above the plant. Nobody had done anything about that yet. Perhaps they were observing it to see what happened. With all the scientists at this station, Raleigh figured that was probably pretty likely.

Some of the planters had little plaques on the white plastic that read DO NOT TOUCH. Raleigh paused by one- it was full of what looked like sundews, but they were instead of being green a vibrant red color shot through with golden-yellow streaks, and the glittering liquid on their leaf tips was steaming slightly. She poked one’s smooth side carefully and it whipped its little liquid dots around, almost catching her finger; she leaped back, startled. Maybe not do that again.

Another one held cacti. Raleigh refrained from touching it.

She kept looking every time she went past a planter. Another caught her attention- this one was large and ring-shaped, with a hole in the center and a single break for a person to walk through and stand there. There were several copies of a plaque that read FOR STRESS RELIEF. PLEASE TOUCH pinned to the gray-speckled white plastic around the rim. The plants within had oblong leaves that looked almost fuzzy and were a faded, dusty blue color. Not light, but not dark; the veins in the leaves were darker blue, and the mulch of the plants was a dark brown and had vibrant pale green grass growing in it. Amongst the fuzzy blue leaves were stalks with tiny pale yellow flowers. Raleigh walked into the center- the plants were over half a meter high and the planter started just above her waist, so when she stood in the center the plants with their long leaves blocked all the sound from around her, dulling it to a mere background chatter. And it was only the sounds of people talking anyways. Curious, Raleigh ran her hands through the leaves on one of the plants; they were extremely soft and she had to stop and touch them again purely because they felt so nice. She understood why these plants would be here. Being a scientist aboard Orbital, one of the largest scientific research stations in the galaxy, was undoubtedly a stressful job.

She left those plants behind and kept wandering. There were a surprising number of people about, and Raleigh was startled to see some kids amongst the scientists. Apparently there were whole families here.

After a short time, she was joined by Kthfthkthir, who scuttled up beside her and kept pace.

“Kthy,” she said, surprised. “Didn’t think you liked going out.”

Kthfthkthir’s fingers sped across the speechpad. “There are no other khavvichthi here,” it said aloud. “No one to see. I am safe here.”

“Gotcha. What do you think so far?” Raleigh gestured at the station.

In response, Kthfthkthir stared down the long main atrium hallway. “You can see the curve of the station,” it said after a moment. “That’s something I find interesting.”

Raleigh squinted. You could, actually. “I hadn’t noticed. That’s neat.”

“At the same time, it is dangerous.”

“Huh? Why’s that?”

“This place is a target for any who would want to hinder the advancement of science.”

“I guess, but… that’d take a lot.”

“Fair.”

She sighed. “We’re… done with the Ring run, really. Where are you going to go after this?”

Kthfthkthir only shrugged.

Raleigh sighed. “I guess we’re leaving Tessana and Misalu here, too. Unless we’re supposed to bring them with us… It’s a shame. I really liked Tessana. She was bossy.”

“Phrell will not be leaving,” Kthy added.

“Oh?”

“Xir target is not yet dead,” the khavvichthi explained. “They intend to stay on Kaliel’s trail until she is found and destroyed.”

“Destroyed, huh? That’s a little dramatic.” Raleigh stopped to look at what appeared to be a fountain, enclosed within a glass bubble.

“Perhaps it is.”

Raleigh found a food court area and used her ship allowance- which had built up while she was trapped on the _Amelia_\- to buy a bit of food, which she ate while staring out the main window at Xovan and the Core and other Rings beyond it. They were in a lucky spot right now- Orbital was at the point where it was passing over another of the Rings at the moment, so the shadowside of that Ring was visible as well. From the little Raleigh could see, it looked like Wenyrev.

“Impressive,” Kthfthkthir commented.

“Sure is.”

She had to buy some sort of trinket or bauble as well to hang in front of her station- all the secondaries who’d gone ashore on Harbour had ended up buying things from the craftspeople of the city, and some of them even had little models of the city that floated in the air at their stations. She was pretty jealous of it.

To her delight, she was able to collect a tiny potted version of the fuzzy blue relaxation plants that was magnetically suspended over a base. Raleigh carried the pot and base back to the ship, cradling it carefully to avoid dropping it.

“What is it?” Kthfthkthir asked.

“It’s a plant,” Raleigh explained. “Someone put a bunch of them in the middle of the concourse to help people relax.”

“Relax? How?”

“Well, they’re really soft, and they’re a really nice color.”

“Soft… can I touch?” Kthfthkthir paused as it walked.

“Oh! Of course.” Raleigh lowered the plant to the khavvichthi’s level and watched as it carefully clasped one of the fuzzy leaves in its peculiar fingers.

“It is soft!” it exclaimed after a moment. “I see why they might be good to have around.”

“Yup.” Raleigh lifted her plant again. “I hope this grows well. There’s instructions for keeping it well… it needs full spectrum light, but I can do that pretty easily. All I need to do is take it outside sometimes.” She grinned. “Everyone else is going to be jealous. They have stained glass, but I have a _plant_.”

Kthfthkthir left her when she turned to go back to the ship; it said it wanted to see more of Orbital and was going to wander about a bit more.

Raleigh reached the docks and waited outside the decon door. “Shoot,” she said to one of the men manning it, as she realized a potential problem. “Is that going to kill my plant?”

He took a look at her new plant and let out a short laugh. “That? No, don’t worry. This is only for microbes and little pathogens and whatnot. The soil microbes in that pot, and the plant itself, are approved and won’t be affected by the decon.”

“Oh, good.” Raleigh wasn’t sure exactly how that worked, but she was glad to hear it all the same.

Charis stepped out of the gateway as the current decon session finished; she made a face at the taste of the decon mist. “Eugh,” she said, and noticed Raleigh when she looked around. “Oh, hello th-… what is that?”

“It’s a plant,” Raleigh said proudly.

Charis shook her head. “You’re out here for one hour, and you buy a plant.”

“It’s a very soft plant.”

“I bet.” Charis sighed. “Well, make sure it doesn’t get dirt anywhere.”

“It’s not going to move!”

“Not on its own. But it could fall somewhere. Oh, and- Phrell is going to ask you where I’ve gone. Tell xir that I’m trying to find that woman from Broadlight.” Charis rolled her eyes. “The law is going to find her before we do, and we’re not allowed to do anything about it, but I don’t want to have that vikyrelle disappear and then hear that xi’s murdered someone on the news. I mean, I ordinarily wouldn’t stop that revenge, except that it’s someone who’s technically under my command right now. So. Better to keep that situation under control.”

“Got it,” Raleigh said nervously. “Is, umm… is xi in a bad mood or something?”

“Yes.”

“Oh.”

Charis waved an arm and crossed to the side of the walkway, leaning against the railing next to Raleigh. “It’s not that bad. But Misalu’s keeping to himself. I think he’s leaving the ship- he seems to be packing everything up.” She frowned.

“About that,” Raleigh started, setting her plant down. “Um… I was, well… I was down in engineering the other day and Phrell told me xi saw Misalu poking around the day before so we went and tried to see what he was doing but we didn’t know where he was so we went and asked Vari and he said-“

“Whoa, whoa, slow down,” Charis interrupted, holding up a hand. “He was what?”

“Misalu was down in the engines for some reason. We still don’t know why. He said it was because he was curious.”

“And you think what?”

“I… don’t have a theory,” Raleigh managed. “But! Um. We did find him talking to someone in the cargo bay and it was really… fishy…” she trailed off, realizing how stupid this sounded to someone who hadn’t been there. They had zero evidence of Misalu being anything but an ordinary scientist. “Uh, yeah. That’s all.”

“That’s all?”

Raleigh deliberated for a moment. “Ask Vari,” she finally said, foisting the responsibility for this onto someone else. “He’ll be able to tell you about this.”

“Oh, lord,” Charis sighed, rolling her eyes and pushing off the railing. “I’ll talk to him while I walk. I have business to take care of.” She paused. “Is your plant actually soft?”

“Uh-huh.” Raleigh picked it up and held it out, offering the leaves to Charis. Charis reached out and ran a finger along one of the blue leaves, then raised her eyebrows.

“It is,” she said. “Neat.”

With that, she turned and strode off, her braid flying around with the swiftness of her movement and nearly hitting one of the decon men. He looked startled and a little awed. As she went around a corner, she pressed a finger to hear ear, evidently calling Vari.

Raleigh watched her go, then turned and walked into the decon gateway and waited while she was misted and cleared to enter the ship.

After she entered she stopped to see if there was enough room at her station to keep the plant. Doubtful, but possible. She scrutinized her consoles and decided it wouldn’t work. That was disappointing.

As she turned to leave, Vari poked his head out from the cockpit and called, “Throw me under the bus, huh? Thanks. This is what I get for helping you.”

Raleigh didn’t answer, choosing instead to sprint off the bridge and check for space elsewhere, either in the crew quarters or in the commons area.

Or maybe she could put it in the med bay. Dr. Vivaki liked plants! Maybe she’d find it interesting.

“Dr. Vivaki?” she said, opening the med bay door.

Tessana was there, working on something. “Hello,” she said, slightly confused. “Oh! Raleigh. Hello there. What is that?”

“It’s a plant,” Raleigh stated, happily. “I got it. It’s for relaxing. It’s very soft.”

“Interesting! May I see?”

“Of course! I came in here to show you. And because I’m not sure where to put it.”

“If you cannot find anywhere for it to reside, I would be happy to keep it here.”

“I was going to ask about that. Good!” Raleigh set the plant on one of the countertops; Tessana ran one of the leaves between her claws, careful not to harm it.

“Fascinating,” she murmured, pale eyes fixed on the plant. They were nearly the same color as the leaves. “I would definitely like to keep this plant here, if you do not mind.”

“Nope, of course not. As long as I can come play with it when I’m stressed or… off.”

“By all means! The med bay door is open to you whenever you would require it.”

Raleigh grinned. “Oh, there’s a base for it too- this thing.” She placed the magnetic base on the table. “You can float it if you want, but I’m not sure I’d do that. It could fall over.”

“Duly noted,” Tessana said, still staring at the plant. “Thank you for this! It is a gift to any who may pass through here.”

Over at his workstation, Misalu snorted. Both Raleigh and Tessana ignored him.

Raleigh returned to her workstation and started working on her project again, out of ideas for things to do at the moment. When her bridge friends returned from their first walkabout, she’d ask to join them and stroll about Orbital later.

The next few days were filled with mostly that- Raleigh’s pet project, which was harder than it seemed, and trips out to Orbital’s main area and occasionally to the labs with Tessana or her friends. Additionally, they pooled their money and bought another plant, which joined the first in the med bay. Vari insisted they get stabilizing straps so that the things didn’t go flying if the _Amelia_ hit turbulence or something. Raleigh was afraid he didn’t like them, but caught him once in the med bay toying with the leaves while Misalu snickered in the background, so knew that he was just worried about the welfare of the ship.

Later in the week, Raleigh was taking a walk through the station with Phrell to calm xir down. The vikyrelle was livid about the lack of action on anyone’s part to find Kaliel. Phrell was moving quickly, expressing xir anger through movement.

“She _knows_ that official Iridere authorities won’t give that ruinous mess of a creature what she deserves,” Phrell spat, tail lashing. “She deserves _death_.”

“Umm.”

“Death. Look what she did! She killed-“ and here xi went into a string of words that Raleigh gathered were the name of xir friend in xir native language- “_and_ she killed a bunch of other people who didn’t do anything and she took you captive and also others captive and she _deserves to die and no one except me is willing to kill her!_” At this point, they were so furious their feathers were fluffed and their crest was extended in a brilliant violet sweep of spiky color from their head.

“I’m pretty sure Charis is willing to do it,” Raleigh countered, jogging for a second to catch up. “But she knows she has to go through official channels and not, uh, just murder people.”

“But do I?”

“Yes?”

“That doesn’t matter.” Phrell cut Raleigh off as if she hadn’t spoken. “That woman needs to die and I am willing to give up a clean criminal record to ensure that she faces her fate.”

“Phrell, maybe killing people isn’t such a grand idea?”

“Your precious commander does it,” Phrell argued. “She killed several people to reach you. I killed someone then too. Why is it different now that the one who- who _will_ die has a face and a name?”

“Um,” Raleigh started, and stopped. She didn’t have an answer for that.

“And her crimes are more atrocious than those of the brainless grunts we killed on Kalyrio. So why is it that she gets to survive and they don’t? If they deserved to die, she does too.”

“While I can’t argue with your logic, I will say you can’t just murder people even if they deserve it.”

“Why not?!”

Am I really having this conversation? Raleigh thought to herself. “Because that’s morally wrong? Like… even if they deserve it, do you deserve it to do that to them? And maybe you shouldn’t take it upon yourself to be the executioner and stuff. Maybe you don’t know the whole story.” She paused, trying to think of a good example, and a quote from an ancient book came to her, albeit not wholly. “There’s this quote- oh, it’s… Got it, sort of. ‘Some that live deserve death, some that perish deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then I would not be so quick to deal out death.’” She paused. “That’s from a really old fantasy book, but it definitely applies in this situation.”

Phrell sighed heavily, still apparently trying to break some kind of walking land-speed record for xir species. “Surely that’s conditional.”

“I don’t think so.”

“Why are you being reasonable? It’s irritating.”

Raleigh shrugged. “I… try not to overreact to things? It hasn’t ended well before.”

Phrell thought for a moment, seeming to calm slightly- xi lowered xir crest, anyways. “I suppose,” xi muttered, looking away with slitted yellow eyes. “Fine.”

Sighing in relief, Raleigh opened her mouth to say something, but was interrupted by her comms- they crackled on with a pop, startling her.

“Vari to crew. Vari to crew.”

Odd. Raleigh stopped walking and pressed her comms in to hear more clearly.

“Vari to crew. If you’re listening, I need you back at the ship ASAP. I need all hands who are ashore back immediately. This is not a request.”

What was going on? Raleigh knew it was a broad address, meaning Vari couldn’t hear her if she tried to answer. She waited for an explanation.

None was forthcoming. Phrell stared oddly at her, wondering why she’d stopped. She switched over to a private comm and called him. “Vari? What’s going on?”

There were a few staticky seconds where he sorted through calls, and apparently gave hers priority. “Raleigh! Hello. Something’s happened.”

“What is it?”

“We got a message.”

“From who?”

“I don’t know. The name is… weird, I’ll give you that. And fake. But it’s a message telling us to get our asses off this station as quickly as we can.”

“What?! Why?”

“Something about Shadowside. Charis doesn’t know yet. I’m pulling all hands back and I’m doing that. I wanted to forward this to Orbital security, but the note says not to. Says the operation will blow up in our faces if we do that. In the worst way.”

“What operation?”

“I’m not sure. I had better come up with some explanation for this real fast-“

“Ship emergency drills,” Raleigh supplied.

“Thanks.” Vari cut out.

Raleigh did an about face and headed for the ship. Phrell half-bounded to catch up, baffled.

“What’s going on?” xi asked, feathers smoothed down again. Whatever was happening, it was more important than xir rant about Kaliel.

“I don’t know,” Raleigh muttered, worried. “But we need to get back to the ship. And fast.”

“We’re on the wrong end of the station.”

“I know.”

“That’s going to take a while.”

“I _know_. So stop talking and save your breath for walking.”

“Nope.” Phrell bounded forwards and intercepted someone driving a luggage cart, blocking the road with xir form. The driver slammed on the breaks and yelped.

“What are you doing?” he cried, leaning out the door.

“We need your vehicle,” Phrell ordered. “You’ll find it at bay… Raleigh, what bay are we docked at?”

“A-118,” Raleigh said.

“A-118,” Phrell repeated. “You’ll find it there. But we need it right now. This is a mission of utmost importance; I can’t tell you what it’s about, but I can assure you that whatever you’re doing will not have consequences on the scale that our mission will.”

“Okay, okay,” the guy said, hopping out of the cart. It was a harried-looking human, and he darted away, hands up. “I’m just gonna say a vikyrelle stole my cart.”

“Say whatever you wish.” Phrell turned to Raleigh. “We have transportation.”

“You can’t just _steal_ vehicles like that!!”

“Oops,” Phrell said boredly. “Are we going?”

Unable to turn this down, Raleigh sighed and strode over to the cart. Phrell had left her the driver’s seat and was monopolizing the entire passenger and backseat area. Raleigh climbed in and examined the controls; the cart was still running, as the previous driver had left the keys in before fleeing. He was sitting on a bench now, watching.

“Do you know how to drive this?” Phrell asked.

“Maybe a question for before you stole it,” Raleigh muttered. “No. But I’ll figure it out.”

It wasn’t complicated. She turned it around and raced towards the right bay at top speed; people got out of the way of the speeding luggage and cargo cart with an annoyed human and a furious violet vikyrelle in it.

And that was fine by her. She knew they needed to get back to the ship.

They needed to get back to the ship _now._

Upon reaching Bay A-118, Raleigh spotted a few other crew members sprinting into the bay. She and Phrell joined them; they waited nervously in the decon gate while the mist sprayed around them.

“What’s going on?” one of them asked Raleigh.

“We don’t really know,” she answered. “We just have to get back to the ship now.”

The decon gate hissed and they rushed into the bay. Raleigh sprinted up to the bridge and slid into her station, nervously powering up her sleeping screens. “Vari,” she shouted, towards the cockpit. “What’s going on?”

“Not sure,” he called back. “But we have to go.”

“G- like, _go_ go?”

“Yup.”

“Do we have everyone?”

“We will soon.” He switched to personnel comms. “All crew members, aboard the ship NOW. If you aren’t aboard, let me know. If you’re waiting to get aboard… hurry it up.” He switched again to outside comms and shouted, “Sorry to you folks at the decon gate, but you’re going to want to get out of here immediately because we’re leaving ASAP.”

They had all their crew members; Raleigh and Phrell had been the furthest away, and had been in the last batch on the ship. The external cams showed the decon gate workers scrambling to grab their equipment and get out of the bay before they ended up sucked into space.

Once they were clear, Vari contacted Dock Management.

“T.F.S. _Amelia_ to Xovan Orbital Docking Management, requesting permission to leave Bay A-118.”

Nothing.

“Management?”

Nothing.

“Shit,” Vari swore. “I can’t reach them, or they can’t reach me… or they’re not responding. This isn’t good.”

“What’s the situation?” Charis called, jogging onto the bridge and jumping down into Vari’s cockpit area. Raleigh listened to them via her eavesdropper, warming up everything and doing a hurried pre-flight check. The ship was in prime condition, as she always was.

“I don’t know!” Vari was upset, that much was obvious. He typed something and said, “Look at this.”

Charis whispered to herself, reading something. “… ‘immediately escape the area’… what?”

“Keep going.”

“… ‘I beg you not to alert the station authorities for fear that his plan will be revealed and he will _cease actions meaning all this will be for nought_-‘” she stopped. “Who sent this?!”

“I don’t know! The name’s fake.”

“From- oh, yeah, that’s fake. But you didn’t forward this to Orbital authorities?!”

“No…”

“Why not? Because it said not to?”

“Er- look, I can’t get it now anyways. So I’m just going to follow its advice and get the hell out of here before whatever’s going to happen happens. I hope it isn’t too late. The message says immediately.”

Charis sighed heavily. “I’m doing this because I trust you,” she finally muttered. “Let’s get out of here.”

Somewhere, Raleigh faintly hoped Dr. Vivaki had strapped the plants down.

“So we can’t raise Management,” Vari muttered, then switched on the comms to the bridge.   
“Anyone who can override the dock commands and depressurize the bay, please do so immediately.”

Raleigh pinged Kthfthkthir, who was already halfway to the bridge anyways. The khavvichthi took up a station that was empty and started working as quickly as it could.

“Depressurizing,” a mechanical voice called, echoing over the bay speakers outside the ship. “Please clear the area.”

“Thanks,” Vari called. The _Amelia_’s engines powered up, making that characteristic upscaling hum that Raleigh loved so much.

The air in the bay was sucked out by the vents, which closed moments later. The bay doors opened. The entire process seemed incredibly rushed to Raleigh; she wasn’t imagining it either. Some leftover air was sucked out into space. Kthy sighed through its spiracles. “Oops,” it managed to say, even while using all of its hands to work on the console.

The _Amelia_ tried to move, but wouldn’t. Vari swore. “Docking clamps! They’re not responding and I can’t-“

Kthy abandoned the empty console, pushed past, and took over Station Beta next to Raleigh. She watched its fingers move. Station Beta’s secondary stared, baffled, then gasped. “Oh!” She immediately took a keyboard and watched what Kthy was doing for a second, then started helping it. In just a few seconds the docking clamps were overridden and released.

“You’re almost better than an AI,” Vari muttered, as the clamps fell away and he pulled the _Amelia_ up and out of the dock. She swiveled around and headed outwards.

As she made for the doors, they began to close. “What the hell?” Vari exclaimed, baffled. “Who’s-“

“Not us!” called Station Beta’s secondary, who was frantically trying to help Kthfthkthir figure out what was going on. “That’s an executive command. We can’t override that- we just have to go!”

“Punch it,” Vari muttered. “Nice. Okay.”

The _Amelia_ shot forwards, tipping sideways, and sped through the doors as they closed. They came close enough to scraping her hull that Raleigh had to close her eyes for a second.

But they made it. They were free, out in space, and they swept away from Xovan Orbital and curved around to look at it.

The doors of every open bay were closing, and locking. Permanently. “What the hell is happening?” Vari exclaimed. He sounded almost frightened.

Raleigh didn’t know. None of them knew.

“We got out just in time,” Charis said, sounding awed. “Thanks to our mysterious tip-off.”

“Okay, but locking down the station can’t be Whatshisface’s ‘Big Plan’,” Vari snapped. “I’m not worried about that. I’m worried about whatever else is going to happen in the next hour.”

Silence on the bridge.

“I guess we’re about to find out.”


	32. Interlude - Homeworlds: Eira'a

The fyaeiarnae hail from the mid-sized world of Eira’a, an Earth-like planet that orbits very close to the system’s mid-sequence yellow sun, Utuaia. The star is named after one of the chief deities of the main fyaeiarnae religion, a bright goddess who loved the fyaeiarnae so much she drew their planet too close to herself. Regretting her decision, she blessed them with armor to protect them from the harsh radiation.

Eira’a is the first planet out from Utuaia, an Earth-sized iron-nickel core terrestrial with a nitrogen-oxygen atomsphere and carbon-based life. It was named after another main deity, Utuaia’s sister. Eira’a learned that her sister Utuaia could not bear children, and decided that her own children would belong to her sister also. The myths of Eira’a tell that she resides deep within the planet, and outbursts of her emotions are responsible for geothermal activity. As Eira’a- the deity- shut away her own heat, the planet needed Utuaia’s light to survive, and together the two gave rise to the fyaeiarnae race.

The second planet out from the sun is Laiemma, the third sister and goddess of the original pantheon. She is the warrior queen, and she protects the fyaeiarnae and their planet from meteors. This is actually true- the planet is large, and as it travels around the sun faster than Eira’a and thus is always in the same space in relation to it, snares in a lot of the debris from space that would otherwise damage the planet. Satellite scans have shown that Laiemma’s surface is pockmarked with countless craters. The planet is a large rocky terrestrial, and it has a very solid iron-nickel core and a nitrogen-argon atmosphere.

The third planet in the system is one that the system captured as it wandered through space. It is an ice world called Asuta Jassa, far from Utuaia, and her name translates to the White Lady. She was a wanderer welcomed in by Utuaia, Laiemma, and Eira’a, but she refused to help them with the fyaeiarnae and retreated to the outer part of the system to try and create her own life. Her distance from Utuaia means that she cannot do this, but she refuses to cooperate with them and keeps trying in vain to bring to life her own creations on that far distant planet. She is fated never to succeed- at least, in any way that would make sense to the early fyaeiarnae. Advanced scans have revealed that the planet’s ice is actually not just water ice but also methane ice, and that coming any closer to Utuaia would cause the ice- and the liquid sea beneath it- to evaporate, leaving the planet a rocky wasteland. Additionally, there may be methane-based life in those dark and silent seas, but as of yet nothing has been confirmed. Asuta Jassa has no atmosphere; it is too cold, and gasses on the planet freeze and snow down. Sometimes it can be warm enough on the light side for those gasses to evaporate, but before they can drift off into space they are frozen again, so there is a perpetual gas snow on the light side of the planet.

In addition to the three planets, the system acquired a massive comet in the dawning days of the fyaeiarnae race, not soon enough that it was there before they had formed a mythos but too soon to be understood as something that was a celestial phenomenon and not an act of magic. As such, it was incorporated into their mythos: the Eye, the representation of the “Dark Things” that lurk in outer space. Fyaeiarnae religion states that the Dark Things see the light of the deities and know that they are growing life somewhere, and come to destroy it, but the goddesses of the fyaeiarnae pantheon constantly fight the Dark Things away. Someday, according to the original annals of the religion, the comet will break up and then the fyaeiarnae will be free from the strife that the Dark Things cause- they, much like most demons in religions around the galaxy, are blamed for all manners of war and strife. There are still fyaeiarnae on the planet who believe going into space means certain death- they believe that leaving the goddesses behind means you cannot escape the Dark Things. This belief is compounded by the fact that Eira’a lies close to the edge of the galaxy, and its night sky is unusually dark and starless. The system lies sideways to the plane of the galaxy- the Milky Way can only be viewed from the southern pole.

There is a small amount of truth in the legend of Eira’a and its proximity to Utuaia- the planet is far closer to the sun than would be optimal, meaning that anything that lives there has to shield itself from excess radiation and heat. Thus most things evolved to be semi-aquatic or fossorial, as water and earth are good blocks for sunlight and radiation, and a lot of things have protective armor or very thick skin. The equator of the planet is actually too hot to pass over if one is on the surface. Most of the equator is ocean, and the water steams where the sun hits it. The equator can be traversed in deep-water vehicles or underground tunnels, or if the one traversing it has the capability to hold their breath and dive very deep underwater and swim for several miles.

This, of course, has proven to be something of a natural barrier for the fyaeiarnae. The species mostly evolved on the northern side of the equator, and indeed the earliest maps seem to show that only half the planet exists, and that an endless ocean is all that lies beyond the equator. This notion was quickly dismissed by several sheltered expeditions over land that led to unfortunately burned explorers that produced more comprehensive maps before either retiring permanently or dying.

More traditional fyaeiarnae prefer to live north of the equator, in their homeland, but many have colonized south. The equator now has many tunnels leading across it, and you can charter a submarine to go beneath the boiling sea.

Eira’a has mostly one large continent and a string of islands leading southwards, along with a southern pole continent that covers the pole and extends upwards on the other side of the planet. The northern continent is called Irah, which means Home, and the southern continent is called Taishae, which has no known meaning. The equator itself is has many names- the more archaic ones being rather apocalyptic things like the End of the World, or the Great Doom, or the like. The fyaeiarnae have long since grown past thinking that the equator is the end of the world, but it cannot seem to lose the deadly and world-ending connotation it picked up during the species first years. As such, it is still referred to in such terms as “The Burning Land” or “The Dead Place.” Nothing lives at the equator save tunneling creatures, extromophile bacteria, and deep-diving or abyssal sea creatures.

The planet is rich in flora and fauna, but somewhat lacking in resources like metal and coal. This drove the fyaeiarnae early on to discover new sources of energy; they began to run out of non-renewable resources long before their population reached unstable levels. This led them to explore new kinds of energy, accidentally segueing into altering bioelectricity. Of course this led to their most fantastic innovations, such as living vehicles, and of course their legendary living starships.

That is what the fyaeiarnae as a race are known for- their living starships, grown within the asteroids that orbit their planet but aren’t large enough to be considered moons or anything but satellites. Contrary to some beliefs, the creatures the fyaeiarnae make into starships are not natural species- there was no selection process, no evolution used. The ships cannot breed; they are simply grown with all of the proper ship parts added in the gigantic asteroid laboratories.

Several early fyaeiarnae ships had very controversial ship intelligences- specially trained members of the species who were assigned to ships with no intelligences and, upon the completion of the ship’s construction, had their brains and nervous systems removed from their bodies and hooked into the ship. The fyaeiarnae, masters of bioelectricity and neuroscience, are perhaps the only culture capable of such a feat. Once enhanced with the speed of a silicon computer, these intelligences perform incredibly in battle and can judge situations as a sentient fyaeiarnae would. Unfortunately- from a scientific perspective- the rest of the galaxy deemed this practice unethical, and a galactic council put an end to the transferred intelligences. The ships themselves were destroyed as well, for fear that the supposed AIs would have backed themselves up somewhere, and out of the idea that this was a mercy for them.

Eira’a’s first ships were not grown in asteroids, however. They were grown in the great tropical mangrove swamps of Irah, where the standing water could keep massive parts afloat and the biologic computers sustained no damage from the water. This was what let the fyaeiarnae access the asteroids around their planet, and what first let them mine them for mineral resources and rare, precious metals- which, in that system, are things like iron and copper.

Many large cities coordinated together to build spaceships- Irah as a continent is one country, split up into self-governing city-states. Officially, a monarchy and a parliament rule over the continent, but that monarchy has no real power and would rather not deal with ruling smaller areas anyways. The parliament is just made up of representatives from the various city-states, and it’s this parliament that coordinated the shipbuilding. Most fyaeiarnae cities are very large and sprawling, built with stone and with specially grown trees. The more modern cities have buildings of trees reinforced with a structure of carbon nanotubes, meaning that after the trees die, the structure will remain.

Light is important on Eira’a- streetlights and light fixtures are extremely important in fyaeiarnae cities, and buildings rarely have more than one story. Skylights are present in every household and business. This is because the fyaeiarnae have extremely poor night and dark vision- their eyes are designed to screen out excess light due to the proximity of their sun, and they didn’t evolve as night hunters. To be in the dark is very frightening for most of the fyaeiarnae race-another reason some fear outer space, with its vast void blackness broken only by the promise of a few dim, distant stars.

Some fyaeiarnae have tried importing bioluminescent algae from Thell Vyrn and using them to light their houses in the dark, but due to the excess light, the algae usually do not survive. Living on Eira’a is difficult for non-native species due to the intense sunlight and radiation. Most plants have thick, rubbery leaves, and dark colors are prominent. Almost every species of animal on the planet has some kind of radiation shielding, be it dark skin, thick fur, or armor plating like the fyaeiarnae themselves have. Those that do not have any protective physiological structures are those that either only come out at night, or live away from the sun.

Though that’s hard to do- go down far enough, and you’ll encounter Eira’a’s lively geothermal activity, which inspired the myth of their goddess in the center of the planet. The continental plates, much like those on every other planet, are constantly on the move. Earthquakes are common, but aren’t normally a problem, given the single-layer structure of fyaeiarnae buildings. Some find enjoyment in frightening visitors with tales of legendary earthquakes and faking fear when an everyday tremor happens.

Despite the numerous earthquakes, volcanoes are uncommon. A lot of the volcanoes that do exist are underwater and a good distance from any major landmasses. The largest volcano- in fact, a magma hotspot- is currently underneath the north pole of the planet. It has yet to form a landmass, but analysis shows that it may within the next few decades.

Utuaia and Eira’a lie about six weeks FTL travel from Iridere.


	33. Conquering King: Flight

Late afternoon sunlight blazed through the windows, splayed over the floor. Dust motes drifted through the air. The atmosphere was peaceful, the silence broken only by the sounds of a distant battle.

“This is it,” Micah sighed heavily to himself, head braced on one hand. “This is how it ends.”

His crown weighed heavily on his head, the metal cold against his scalp. Should he even still be wearing it?

He’d sent Aesila and Sofeir down through the tunnels with Mjoll. Aesila could control the lioness- who was loath to leave Micah, but he would rather her take care of them than die with him.

Because he was going to die. When the crowds reached the palace, he would give himself up to them. No matter what he managed to do, he could not save his people from themselves.

Everything he’d done had been a mistake. Everything he’d worked for, everything he’d done, had been in vain. All his explorations had only drawn evil down upon his country and his people; and his neighbors had attacked at the same time. A country at war was not a country that necessarily supported its recently appointed king.

Aesila… she was truly the one who had managed to hold everything together for as long as she could. And she had wanted to try and speak to the people who were coming, to try and calm them. But remembering the assassins, Micah had told her to go.

“Come with us,” she urged. He’d refused- the people would never stop pursuing them if they didn’t find something. He would be that something.

Something swirled through the dust motes. A gust of wind? No, it was too close to the ground. Micah didn’t bother looking directly at the disturbance- he waited. It whirled through the room, gently, and hurried past his throne towards the door behind him-

“Julis.”

A sudden stop in the silence. Only the gentle falling of dust motes. Perhaps he was wrong-

The air shimmered, and Julis appeared out of thin air. Micah concealed his confusion and surprise- indeed, Julis was a wizard. This was final evidence of that. Apparently, he was a powerful enough magician to hide himself from the human eye, to turn himself invisible.

“Your Majesty.”

“Are you running, Julis?”

A pause. “Yes, sir, I am,” Julis answered.

“Good. Get out while you can.”

Micah sensed surprise from Julis. The other man paused, frowning, and walked closer to Micah. After a few long moments, he sighed. “What are you doing?”

A direct question. “Waiting,” Micah answered, not moving. “Waiting for my people to come to me.”

“They’ll kill you.”

“I’m quite aware.”

A flash of anger on Julis’ face. “Micah, you’re committing suicide if you stay here.”

“I know. But there is no other way to ensure Aesila’s and Sofeir’s safety. Yours, too, if you run now before they arrive.”

“You don’t need to do this.”

“If they do not find me here, they will search for us until we are found. They will never leave us be. We will not be safe no matter what; as long as we are in this land, we will be found.”

Julis paused. There was a strange expression on his face; something between pain and indecision, and after a painfully long moment he looked down, letting out a breath. “Listen. I… if you come with me, you will never be found by them.”

“I appreciate-“

“Damn it! Shut up!” Julis snapped, cutting Micah off. Startled, Micah fell silent. “Listen to me. You don’t understand yet, but I can take you somewhere you will never be found by the people on this- in this country. Alright?”

Perplexed, Micah stared at him.

“Don’t bother doing this. Escape. It is more important that you stay with your family rather than leave them with only the memory of you as a selfish martyr who would rather stay and die…”

Julis trailed off. Micah glanced up, pained, and opened his mouth slightly. What did he mean, he could get him out…? What was he talking about? Was there a way to hide them from the retribution of his people?

“But my people- they demand something for what I have done-“

“Let me tell you right now that all of this is not your fault. This is someone else’s doing and you shouldn’t feel responsible. I can explain more later, but right now, we _really_ need to go.”

That was enough. As much as a noble death was worth, Micah didn’t really want to die. He wanted to be safe with his wife and daughter. And if Julis could save them, well… he trusted Julis. He hauled himself up and took a breath. “Very well. Lead the way.”

“Good! Let’s go!” Julis grabbed Micah’s wrist and dragged him unceremoniously forwards. Micah flailed a bit, offset by the sudden pull and the weight of his sword at his side.

“Where are we going?” Micah asked, faltering, as he followed Julis.

“Where did you send Her Majesty and the princess?”

“There is a tunnel, a tunnel- it runs below the castle, out towards the valley pass through the Nyphel Mountains-“

“I know it.” Julis nodded sharply. “We’re going there.”

“We’re following them?”

“You sent Mjoll with them, didn’t you?” Micah nodded miserably. “Of course you did,” Julis sighed. “That’s fine. We should be able to catch up with them. And don’t worry about us being seen.” He raised one hand and revealed a black box, tied to a string and looped around his neck. Carefully, he lifted the string- it was extremely long, and he roughly looped it over Micah’s head as well, stretching to reach. Micah wasn’t sure what to make of it.

“What-?”

“Hold on.” Julis swiped his thumb across the box, which Micah now recognized as an artifact he’d picked up in the first Haunted City they’d explored. “This should work as long as you’re wearing the generator…”

“Pardon?”

The air around them shimmered. Micah felt a surge of strange energy from his medallion, and the world around them distorted.

“Ah! Perfect! Now we’ll just have to walk with this around both our necks. Sorry, but it won’t function otherwise. Now come on.”

Micah was forced to traverse the halls of his palace hunched over and effectively tied to his advisor. Julis seemed to know the way to the tunnels, despite the fact that they were a well-kept secret by the royal family, and in fact Micah wouldn’t have known of them but for Aesila mentioning them offhand at one point…

They did not head directly for the tunnel. “Where are we going?” Micah asked, fear now rising in the back of his mind.

“I need my bird,” Julis muttered. “She should be in the stables, already saddled. We’re taking her with us. That’s not an argument. She may have been raised in space, but I still raised her, and I’m not leaving her behind. Much like I’m not leaving you or your family. We’re all getting out of this mess.”

Micah had no idea what he was talking about, so he kept his mouth shut as they hurried through the palace and reached the stables behind the main building. He could hear the sound of the sea and the far-off cries of angry people. He was at least relieved that he’d sent his personal guard away- they didn’t need to face retribution for what he’d done. Or, according to Julis, what had been done regardless of his actions. He still didn’t understand what that meant.

“Come on, girl,” Julis said, letting Micah hold the strange black device for a moment while he hurried up and unlatched the door to Iishni’s stall. The terror bird was already fully saddled, and Julis hushed her gently while leading her back over to Micah. He looped the string of the device over his neck again and led Iishni by the reins; immediately, she also shimmered out of view, but was still visible to Micah.

“How are you doing that?” Micah asked, as they hurried back into the palace. “Keeping yourself from the view of men and beasts alike…”

“It’s an invisibility device based on kinetic shield generation technology. That’s why it works with your medallion, though it took some tinkering on my part. Iishni has kinetics in her armor, so I don’t need to loop it around her neck, and I have kinetics in my clothing so I just need to have it contacting me. Yours is different… but it still works. All it does is bend light rays the same way it would deflect projectiles or energy weapons.”

“…what?”

“Someday, you’ll understand what I’m saying. Someday soon.”

Baffled, Micah fell silent.

The tunnel was accessible through a storeroom that was reached by a servant staircase. Julis waited impatiently while Micah braced his shoulder against a set of shelves and pushed it aside, revealing the neat and nearly perfectly circular hole in the wall behind it.

“Can you put that back?” Julis asked, as they went through it. Micah frowned.

“I can try,” he replied, and attempted to haul the shelves back. He could get it most of the way and squeeze through again, but there was no chance of moving it from the inside- there was nothing to hold on to.

Julis shook his head. “Never mind,” he said, with a heavy sigh. “It won’t matter for long. Let’s just stop wasting time.”

They hurried down the small tunnel and emerged into a very large open area, perhaps ten meters across and three tall, a wide smooth oval-shaped tunnel. In the interest of time, Julis boarded Iishni. Having no choice, Micah did the same, holding onto Julis from behind and praying he didn’t fall off- the bird felt so unsteady to him. Iishni complained about the weight very vocally.

“Hush,” Julis scolded, patting her neck. “You can handle it.” She subsided.

It took them perhaps fifteen minutes of swift running to catch up with Aesila and Sofeir, riding as they were on Mjoll’s back. They were going at a comfortably slow pace and hadn’t seemed to speed up at all.

“Aesila,” Micah said, as they reached them. She turned around, astonished, and her expression shifted from surprise to endearment.

“Micah,” she replied, sounding relieved. “Of course.”

“Why didn’t you run?”

“I was saving Mjoll for the plains, where we could be seen.”

“But you must have heard us coming in the tunnel.”

“I did. A lone rider does not pursue the queen, not when a tunnel has been discovered. I knew it had to be you and Julis.”

“Both of us?”

“Of course he would escape. He isn’t going to stand around and die. And neither are you. Why did you leave?”

“Julis says he can save us.”

“I am inclined to believe him.”

“Yes, very good,” Julis said, interrupting their conversation. Micah hopped off Iishni’s back and climbed up onto Mjoll’s, extremely glad to have his own mount back. Aesila was holding Sofeir close to her chest; the child seemed to be fine.

“You still have your crown,” Aesila pointed out.

Micah reached up and felt the heavy metal on his head. “So I do,” he murmured, and gripped it to throw it off.

“No! Don’t!” Julis called out, stopping him. “We may need that in the future.”

“For what?”

“Evidence.”

“Evidence?”

“Yes. Just- I require your trust.” Julis leveled his gaze, brown eyes boring into Micah’s. “Will you give it as you have done before?”

Micah lowered his eyes. “Lead on.”

The tunnel was long, smooth, and straight. Eventually it led out to the plains outside the city, and it was there that they really had to make a run for it. People would be watching from the walls. The tunnels weren’t common knowledge, but the people would have to be fools if they believed there was no secret way out. The plains were broad and flat- a ballista might get close enough to damage them, perhaps even hit them. And on the plains, swift riders could reach them…

Riders. As they reached the end of the tunnel and headed up a set of stairs, Micah realized that the cavalry he and the Ringleaders had so carefully gathered and organized could now be sweeping the fields in search of Micah and his family. Additionally, the Ringleaders on their wolves could be out there themselves, patrolling and waiting…

“Micah, if you would?” Julis was standing next to a large stone circle on a track, next to a stone wall and some stone benches next to a wall with a single window letting light in, streaming through the bits of grass that trailed through the gap and into the room. Micah climbed off Mjoll’s back and hurried over, examining the stone; it was a simple sliding door mechanism. Micah put his shoulder against it and pushed, slowly heaving the door out of the way.

Once the opening was large enough to allow them passage, he re-mounted Mjoll and the party proceeded through. “Again, no way to close it,” Julis sighed, glancing back at it. “Oh well. No matter; we just need to move.”

They were on the lower plains outside the city. Micah could see the towering city walls and the distant spires of the palace; the tunnel had gone under most of the city, and Julis was leading them towards the mountains. Fortunately the plains seemed clear.

“Hurry,” he urged them, and they started what was perhaps the most dangerous part of their journey yet.

The terrain was familiar to Micah. He tried to keep them out of sight of the city walls, taking all the routes he had learned while scouting out the city during his own rebellion. There were some points where being in sight was inevitable, but he kept them moving slowly and steadily and hoped that no one would see them.

After a point, they cleared the main plains and were in the more hilly area, where they were safe from the view of the city. Micah sped them up a little bit, urging Mjoll onwards, and Julis kept Iishni going at a swift trot.

As they were nearing the foothills of the mountains, Julis fumbled in his robes and pulled out a strange whitish… thing. Micah thought it was a twisted metal ornament or perhaps jewelry, until Julis fitted it neatly into his ear and fiddled with it slightly.

“Answer me,” he muttered under his breath, whispering to himself. “Answer me, come on, it’s- yes! Yes. Cendrick to _Triumph_. I need immediate pickup. What?” A pause. “He’s doing _what?!_ He started the operation? My god. I didn’t know. Did you pass my message to the _Amelia?_ At least? Did that go through? Good. What? Did I – Of course I didn’t know, he doesn’t let his agents- never mind, that doesn’t matter. We just need to get out of this system, fast. Bring the ship down. Cloak and land in the foothills if possible. Pull that trick with the shields that the _Amelia_ is famous for. Do it now! There are natives in the city that might be out looking for us in a few moments.” Another pause. “Yes, us. I… have others with me.” He glanced over at Micah and his family, expression a little distressed. “Two adults and a child, and two animals. Look, it’s my job to handle this, and I will- what? No, I know I don’t have a job now. It’s an expression. Just bring the ship down, now.”

He brought his hand, down, shaking his head. “I need to call it in,” he sighed, and pushed forwards. Micah, unaware of what else to do, followed.

They reached a sheltered valley where the ground sloped down into a wet, grassy gully and Julis dismounted. Micah made to do the same, but Julis held a hand up, shaking his head, and Micah remained behind while Julis strode forwards.

“Bring her around the mountain. Yes, good. That’s right…”

The clouds rippled. As Micah watched, they were pushed out of the way as something came descending downwards in a haze of mist. A massive oval shadow, bigger than anything Micah had seen before—it seemed to be nearly as large as any of the ancient buildings in the Haunted Cities. Extending from its sides were broad winglike structures that matched its sleek design. It was hovering mystically in the air, descending towards them and creating a horrific wind. In front of it Julis stood firm, robes billowing around him, as the thing gently drifted down into the grassy vale under his watch. Micah was terrified by the noise and the wind and Mjoll danced a few steps back.

“God above,” Aesila whispered, staring. “What _is_ that thing?”

“I don’t know,” Micha replied, one hand on his sword.

Julis held one hand up, and the giant thing settled onto the ground. The wind abruptly ceased.

“Good,” Micah heard him call, and anything else he said was drowned out by the noise Micah heard rise from the plains back by the city. The howling of wolves.

He turned his head, heart dropping. He knew those howls- those were the Ringleaders’ wolves, and they were coming. Someone had seen them fleeing.

Julis heard it, too, and Micah saw the color drain from his face. “Oh, no,” Julis muttered. “No, no…! I can’t cloak the ship. This one- oh, I’m going to be mired in so much paperwork.” He caught Micah’s gaze. “They can’t see my ship.”

Micah didn’t understand what that meant, but he made a decision.

“Aesila, off,” he commanded. She dismounted Mjoll with one hand holding Sofeir and looked expectantly up at him.

“Micah, what are you doing?” Julis asked, in a somewhat warning tone.

“I’ll lead them off,” Micah promised, gripping Mjoll’s reins. He took his crown off, looked at it for a moment, and handed it to Aesila.

“Again with the noble sacrifice!” Julis growled. “No. I’ll figure-“

“I won’t die,” Micah said loudly, cutting him off. “I’ll lead them on a chase. I know this terrain better than they do—I grew up here. Mjoll and I can outstrip them. They will not catch us.”

“Are you sure?”

“I’m certain.” Micah nodded, hoping he was telling the truth. “I will return here when they are lost amongst the mountains. If I do not, go. But I will.”

“If I see you in trouble, I’ll try to help,” Julis offered.

Again, Micah wasn’t sure what that meant. “Hurry,” he said, in response.

“Go.”

Micah turned and spurred Mjoll onwards. She surged forwards, glad to be doing something exciting, and he saw on the plains below the five Ringleaders riding in a V formation towards his location.

He drew and flourished his sword, letting the light catch it. It flashed and he saw the Ringleaders turn towards him as one- they saw, and they were taking the bait. Good, he thought, then turned Mjoll towards the steeper valley areas. He meant to give them a chase, and he would. He’d lead them so far from Julis’ magical ship that they would never find their way back to it.

He ducked his head as Mjoll dashed underneath low-hanging trees. The barks and snarls of the direwolves were barely audible behind him but growing closer- he couldn’t let them get close. Mjoll would tire before the wolves would. He had to lose them.

“Faster,” he whispered to Mjoll, and she snarled in response. They turned and veritably flew down a slope- he glanced back in time to see the lead wolf leap out into empty space and lose its footing, tumbling down the slope and spilling one of the Ringleaders down into the leaves. Micah grinned savagely- one down, four remaining. The one might be back up, but they’d be far behind at this speed. He leaned closer to Mjoll’s back and felt her powerful muscles working as hard as she could manage, driving them onwards.

Through the forests. Micah took full advantage of Mjoll’s agility to send them over ravines, leaping from rock to rock in steep or craggy areas, doing everything he could to lose the Ringleaders- but not too far. They couldn’t be allowed see Julis’ magic flying ship, so they had to keep their eyes on him.

Shouts echoed behind him. He glanced back after they’d cleared a ravine and watched as one of the wolves stepped in the crevasse, whimpering as it pitched forwards. The Ringleader it was carrying cried out as she hit the ground. Two down.

Abruptly, Micah took a wrong turn. He realized it as he and Mjoll were speeding along a forest path, and knew that it ended in a dead end. He slowed her slightly until the remaining three wolves were all visible behind them, then spurred her onwards. The dead end in question was a large curving cliff- if they could jump off it…

“Hah!” called one of the Ringleaders, behind him. _No. You do not yet have me within your grasp_, Micah thought, determined.

Mjoll hit the cliff at top speed and went straight up it, twisting on Micah’s direction and springing outwards, over the baffled Ringleaders and their wolves. One of the wolves jumped for her, but couldn’t reach her- she landed safely on the leafy ground and sped off.

Three more. Micah took Mjoll up the side of the ravine; she clawed her way over the top of it, losing a lot of momentum, but managed to keep going. The wolves couldn’t climb and had to go to a shallower area to follow.

At some point, a misstep while leaping from boulder to boulder took another of the Ringleaders as his wolf slipped and crashed sideways to the ground, and Micah figured it was time to start heading back towards the ship. Only the tall woman and the short man were left, the woman on her red wolf and the man on his steely gray one.

Micah took Mjoll in a large arc back in the direction of the ship, but due to his shortcut up the side of the ravine, he misjudged the distance and came out of the forest at the top of a massive cliff, grassy in nature and running for several miles.

“Oh,” Micah said, looking out over the trees. He could feel Mjoll tiring beneath him and knew he had to get to safety soon. If he took the cliff, he could circle back through the lowlands and reach Julis again…

Mjoll chuffed loudly beneath him; he heard the sounds of the Ringleaders behind him. He turned Mjoll to the left and started to run along the cliff edge, letting her stretch out and go as fast as she could.

He expected to perhaps outrun the wolves, perhaps not. If all else failed, he’d jump Mjoll off the side of the cliff and take his chances with the steep slope.

He did not expect Julis’ intervention.

The wolves did not emerge from the forest. Something exploded in the distance- Micah wasn’t sure what, but he heard the sound and saw fire rising from the forest. As he turned and looked to his right, off the cliff, he was startled to find Julis’ ship rising next to him, shrieking through the air. Wind buffeted Mjoll, and she growled beneath him. The gleaming black bulk slid past him and slowed, keeping pace. At the rear end, it was open- Micah could see that whatever this thing was, it was hollow. Standing inside and holding firmly onto a railing was Julis.

“Micah!” he shouted, and beckoned. “Hurry! They won’t be deterred for long!”

What?

“On the ramp and into the ship, now!”

Into the ship. Micah glanced down, at the gap between the large landing area on the ship and the cliff edge, and decided that he might as well go for it. He urged Mjoll forwards and jumped her, sailing over the immense drop. For a second, he saw nothing but clear air beneath him with trees far below, and then Mjoll’s paws made solid contact with the black material of the ship’s ramp. Micah spurred her forwards and she leaped into the cavernous inside of Julis’ magic ship. The ‘ramp,’ what she had landed on, began to fold upwards and seal away the world.

“Get us out of here!” Julis shouted, one hand on his strange white earpiece. Now that Micah was inside the ship he could hear a strange whining sound that seemed to get louder and more powerful, and he felt the giant ship lurch. Julis finally let go of the railing as the ramp connected with the rest of the ship and daylight was shut away.

“Finally,” Julis sighed, then stared at Micah and Mjoll, who was panting hard but on alert in this strange place. “I am going to be in so much trouble.”

“Where am I?” Micah ventured to ask.

“This- oh, this is going to be difficult to explain.” Julis rubbed his forehead with one hand. “Alright. Well, here. This is my ship. We’re going to space. I would drop more but I feel like you might need to get adjusted to this first.”

Micah paused. Space…? “Where’s Aesila?” he asked, latching onto one of the few familiar things he could locate.

“She’s on one of the upper decks, getting settled in with Sofeir. She’s taking this extremely well.”

“Where is your bird?”

“Stabled safely in a specially altered cargo bay area. I don’t have anything prepared for Mjoll… I wasn’t supposed to bring you when I escaped. Then again, Morpho also didn’t plan on me leaving of my own volition. So there is that.”

Micah was bewildered by all of these terms, people he didn’t know, things he didn’t understand. “I am confused,” he managed, keeping one hand on his sword hilt.

“That’s to be expected,” Julis said, grinning at him. “But for now, all you need to know is that you’re safe, and we’re getting out of here. Don’t worry. I’ll handle the Watch and Morpho, and I’ll try and figure out if the crew can rig up a stable for Mjoll somewhere.” He started through the darkened ship, headed for what appeared to be a staircase in the wall leading up. After a moment he paused and glanced back.

“Welcome to the galaxy, my friend.”


	34. Snowblind: Avalanche

There had once been stones underneath the snow, that much was clear. There had been a paved path here. The snow and ice had long since destroyed the path- Arkane was constantly tapping forwards to find small crevasses, cracks that could lead to a broken ankle or leg or worse. Not a pathway for traveling.

Hallowtone had once been a destination that a significant amount of people had gone to. Now it was a secluded mystery.

“What happened?” Casey asked, as they ascended. Arkane tried to think of a short summary, something that wouldn’t require them taking off their mask, and failed. Carefully, they slid it down and let it hang around their neck.

“What do you know about Hallowtone?” they began.

Casey shrugged. “I know it’s a research base, and it’s for super-secret research, and… well I thought it was destroyed, but Ursa said it wasn’t, so I guess it’s not. And it’s up there. And looks like a castle.” He glanced up in the direction of Hallowtone, although the base was blocked by rock now.

“Alright. Well, I’m not certain what caused the rumor that it was destroyed,” Arkane started. Samath drifted over the snow, sensing for crevasses before them. “But I do know that we all believed it. Perhaps it really was, and this is a new one. Perhaps it never was.” They paused. “I do know that Hallowtone was designed and built with a very specific purpose and a very unique mechanism.”

“Go on,” Casey prompted, interested.

Arkane obliged. “Hallowtone was built on an unmoving ice cap that goes down for miles. It stretches between several mountains, and is within a kind of basin formed by their peaks. Glaciers flow from the area, but the center is stable. It is pure ice. Hallowtone’s base was drilled out of the ice and some of its laboratories. The laboratories can be completely disconnected from the base and the other laboratories- each can become a self-contained unit. This is not for the safety of the experiments. This is so that if one of the experiments escapes, or some research goes very wrong, the laboratory can be sealed. Then nuclear charges on the sides and bottom of the unit will activate, flash-melting the ice around and below it for several miles. The unit will sink deep into the ice before it refreezes, rendering the experiment inactive or killing it entirely. By the time the unit reaches the end of glacier, it will have killed any creature inside from cold, lack of water, and lack of food.”

“Wow,” Casey said after a moment. “That… I mean, that works, but that is one _hell_ of a safeguard. What if there’s people in the labs?!”

Arkane shook their head. “Be careful with experiments.”

“Lordy,” Casey said quietly. “That’s _ruthless_.”

Arkane only shrugged.

(Excuse me. You’ll want to go to the left,) Samath said to Arkane, hovering in place. Arkane took Casey’s arm and guided him to the left, around what they presumed was a crack in the stone.

“Hibernia, tell Epsilon to tell Orca to watch out for that,” Arkane called to the other stormflier. She bobbed in the air and zipped off. Samath trailed behind them, then resumed searching in front once the danger was past.

After a moment, Casey said, “Hey, how do you know so much about Hallowtone?”

“I researched it,” Arkane replied. “During my stormrunner training. It was mentioned a few times but never elaborated on, and I was curious. There is not much material available on it; a surprisingly small amount. It is a very classified area.”

Casey bit his lip. “So,” he said after a moment. “We’re turning the stormflier eggs over to them?”

Arkane almost stopped walking, but stumbled instead and barely caught themselves.

“I mean- I know we’re supposed to. And we’re not giving up _our _stormfliers. But- the eggs. We’re giving the eggs to them?”

“That was the plan,” Arkane said carefully. They glanced over at Samath, still scanning over the snow but clearly listening into the conversation. They didn’t know where Epsilon and Zenith were. They also spotted Orca just behind and stopped, feeling that this was going to be a conversation she had to be part of.

“What will they do with the eggs?”

“That I do not know. I’d assumed they were going to be put somewhere for safekeeping.”

Orca joined them. “Ursa never told us what would happen to them.”

“It is not usually my place to ask questions about what will happen to the cargo I carry,” Arkane murmured. “I know if it is dangerous or not, but it would be rude to ask about what happens to it. The privacy of those receiving mail from me will be respected.”

“Okay, but this is different,” Casey explained almost desperately. “These- they’re living, thinking creatures.”

“The eggs aren’t,” Arkane started to say, but remembered: the eggs had been all set to hatch into experimental creatures before they were chilled. That’s why their own stormfliers had hatched- normally it would take weeks for the eggs to develop into tiny stormfliers ready to hatch. These eggs were no longer eggs, but young stormfliers. “Ah- hm.” They frowned.

“Yeah, exactly. If they were just eggs, like… chicken eggs, or something, I’d say yeah, go ahead, give them over. But these are legitimate fully-formed fliers.” Casey patted the bag on his back. “I don’t think I want to kill something that can talk to me with words and emotions.”

Orca started to say something, but instead said, “Damn.”

“What do you want me to do?”

“I think Hallowtone will just kill them and run experiments on them,” Casey said worriedly. “They won’t care if they’re actual baby fliers.”

“How do you know?” Arkane asked, somewhat puzzled.

“I mean- I don’t,” Casey relented, fiddling with his gloves. “But- if they’re the kind of people who would kill other people by locking them in laboratories and sinking them in the ice, do you think they’ll really be nice to the baby stormfliers?”

Arkane sighed. “Casey,” they started. “I don’t think… Hm.”

Casey and Orca glanced at each other, then at Arkane, who turned to start walking up the path. Casey followed him.

“Uh, Arkane,” Orca said, reaching out and catching their arm. Casey glanced over at her; Arkane made a motion telling him to go on. He nodded and headed further upwards.

“Yes?” Arkane said, turning back to Orca.

Orca pursed her lips- she’d pulled her mask down, as it wasn’t snowing. “We- errr, you know… maybe Casey’s right. Maybe we shouldn’t turn the stormfliers over.”

“That’s what we were supposed to do,” Arkane said, not certain if they were really arguing or not.

“But- I mean, even ours?”

Arkane turned towards her, folding their arms. “What do you mean?”

“I mean- agh,” Orca muttered, running a hand through her hair. “Uh-“

(Epsilon says she doesn’t want to give him up, but thinks Hallowtone will take him,) Samath reported.

Arkane nodded slowly. “I… see.”

Orca stared at them, face caught between fear, confusion, and anger. Before she could say anything, Casey rejoined them, Zenith hovering just behind his right shoulder.

“Zenith says-“ he started, then caught the tension in the air. “Uh. Should I leave?”

“No,” Arkane said, abruptly turning to him. “Casey. If Hallowtone asked for Zenith, would you give her up?”

Casey stared, obviously taken aback. “I- Zenith?!” He glanced back at the stormflier. “No! Gosh, man, I don’t think it’s possible… why are you asking?”

Arkane didn’t answer, but glanced up to see their own stormfliers going in lazy circles above the group.

Technically, Hallowtone hadn’t hired them. No one had hired them. The only reason they were doing this was Ursa, really, and the fact that Arkane usually lived at Ceos and cared about the fate of the base.

Who owned the stormflier eggs, and by extension, the stormfliers? Was it Ceos? Ursa had said take the eggs to Hallowtone. Did that mean that she’d transferred ownership of the eggs to Hallowtone? Arkane didn’t know. They considered their own willingness- or lack of- to give up Hibernia and Samath. The two stormfliers had impressed on Arkane; they wouldn’t talk to anyone else, and they certainly wouldn’t change who they were bonded with. Hallowtone could take them by force, but…

“Orca, you are right,” Arkane said, after a moment. “I also would not give up my fliers. They would not go from me… we should be cautious.”

“Right,” Orca said, looking incredibly relieved. “Epsilon told me he’d rather die than be taken away from me. I thought that was kind of dramatic, but I got the point.”

(You didn’t actually think about giving us up, did you?) Samath asked, sounding a little nervous.

Arkane considered this. When the stormfliers had hatched, they’d been a bit of a burden… but they’d quickly become constant companions rather than annoying pets. They were a little difficult to keep fed, given that they needed a lot of food, but other than that they were hardy creatures and Arkane had hardly needed to do anything to keep them alive. They thought about giving the eggs up- and realized that they had never included the active stormfliers with the eggs. They’d have handed over the eggs, but not their fliers.

“No,” Arkane said after a moment. “I didn’t.”

(I knew it,) Hibernia said instantly. Arkane smiled and held up a hand; Hibernia floated down and gently rested on their outstretched fingers, although she was far too big to actually fit in Arkane’s hand like she once had and instead just sat on it.

Orca let out a gusty breath. “Thank god,” she muttered. “Epsilon, we’re okay.”

The black stormflier materialized out of nowhere and loomed next to Orca’s head, silent. All of the stormfliers were technically silent, but there was something about Epsilon that was _more_ silent than the others.

“Was he hiding?” Casey asked, peering up at the black stormflier.

“I told him to. No way those Hallowtone guys are taking him. I was gonna ask you guys to lie to the scientists and say I didn’t have one, or hide yours too.”

“Huh.” Casey frowned. “Maybe we still should.”

“Well… they can try to take our fliers, but as long as we’re outside, they aren’t going to be able to catch them.” She glanced up at Epsilon with a smirk. “No one can catch them.”

“True,” Arkane admitted. “Perhaps we should endeavor to stay outdoors for as much of this transaction as possible.”

“I’m down,” Casey said.

Arkane turned back towards the path up. “We should keep going.”

Overhead, the sky swirled gray and white, warning of more snow. The air was thinner at these heights; Arkane wondered how the stormfliers were doing with it.

“Hibernia,” they called.

(Yes?)

“Are you doing alright? The air is somewhat thin here.”

(I’m great! There’s less air but that just means I need to let out my breath a little.)

Satisfied, Arkane looked back to the path.

The wind howled. The walls of the pass rose tall around Arkane. Up above, a rocky half-peak rose and towered over the path.

Samath, who had skated on ahead to search for more cracks, gave Arkane an image of Hallowtone. From above the pass, it could be seen- a massive castle on the ice, fogged by the snow. It looked medieval, almost as if it belonged in a fantasy story, and Arkane half expected it to be guarded by Xovan’s largest rock wyrm.

“Hibernia, carry a message for me?” Arkane asked.

(That’s what I do!) she said cheerfully.

“Take that image and give it to the others,” they said. “If you would.”

(Sure.) Hibernia spun and whisked away.

Arkane nodded and kept moving. They were so close now… so close.

Samath appeared out of the snow above. (Arkane!)

“Yes?”

(Something is wrong!) Samath spun in agitation. (Very wrong. The sky is not right- there is anger, there is a disturbance- I cannot-)

“Samath, calm down,” Arkane said, reaching out and grabbing the stormflier. He steadied in Arkane’s hands, the feeling of being held calming him. “Tell me what you feel.”

(There is something in the sky that shouldn’t be there. And the ground here is hollow! There is no _time_, I can hear it, I can feel it-)

Over the noises of the wind, another sound rose up. Something came screaming out of the misty sky like a meteor, engines firing sporadically, its bulk black in the overcast clouds. It was slewing violently, but narrowly avoiding an impressive number of rocky spires.

Arkane gave commendations to whoever was piloting the ship. But it was headed…

“We should move,” they said after a moment.

The ship’s wings were out, but the subjets didn’t seem to be working. Arkane watched as the ship went straight for a gap between two peaks. But they were too low, too low-

Arkane hastened backwards. The wings were going to snap off it went through there, they thought, but then the pilot of the ship somehow brought the wings halfway in and rolled the ship, spinning it as it roared downwards. It didn’t even touch the stone.

Well, that time.

As it passed over Arkane’s pass, coming from the left and heading down, the subjets suddenly started working again. The ship fishtailed violently in the air and completely changed direction, bouncing off the rocky spire over Arkane’s team with a tremendous cracking sound.

It lost a significant portion of its momentum, but now it was hurtling towards the glacial ice below Hallowtone. Arkane watched as it hit.

The nose touched down first and caught on the ice, the drag there causing the back of the ship to have far more momentum than the front. The ship rebounded up, flipping end over end completely once before coming down, crashing full-force onto the ice on its belly and sliding a bit. The ice beneath it melted from the heat of the hull, and steam surrounded it.

It seemed to be, for the most part, intact. Arkane wagered that a fair amount of the crew members were still alive, depending on where the ship had come from. Curious, they took a step forward… and the last of their nightmares came true.

(Arkane, the ground here is not safe!)

A small rock dropped off the cliff face above and plunked down in the snow beside Arkane. They froze and slowly looked up, to where the ship had impacted on the rock. Dust and powdery snow were falling…

“Samath,” Arkane said, trying to sound calm, “Go and tell Orca and Casey to go back. It is not safe on this path and will not be for a time-“

“Arkane, did you see that ship?!”

Casey. Arkane whipped around as a crack echoed through the mountains. Casey was hastening through the snow. They had to warn him.

“Go back!”

“What?”

Arkane yanked their mask down, feeling the sting of cold air on their face. “Get! Back!”

Casey stopped, frowning. “Wh… Arkane, what’s going on?”

Vibrations echoed through the air, through the stone. Hibernia came hurtling around the bend and rolled in the air, banking, to reach Arkane and join Samath behind them. Arkane motioned furiously, trying to tell their companions to stay away. “It’s not safe. The rock is coming down. Run, Casey!”

Another rock crashed down just to Arkane’s left; they flinched, trembling. Samath had said the ground here wasn’t safe. That meant that if they moved, it could break, and they would fall into whatever was beneath. Casey stared, his expression slowly becoming more frightened. “Arkane…?”

Orca rounded the corner as well, and almost stopped walking when she saw the situation. “Get back,” she called to Casey, instantly understanding what was going on. “Casey. With me. Arkane!”

Something occurred to Arkane. The other stormfliers, the unhatched ones- they couldn’t be caught in this, and Arkane still had the egg box. They pulled the box off their back, carefully laying it in the snow. Hopefully it wouldn’t fall into the empty space below. If they moved, they could die. If they stayed where they were, they could die.

“Samath, Hibernia, carry your siblings to safety. Take the box to Orca. She’ll take care of it.”

(No!) Hibernia flared her wings, frightened. Samath seemed torn between doing what he was told and staying with Arkane.

“Hibernia, do as I say.”

(Not leaving you!)

“Yes, you are.” Another shower of small stones. “Go. Now!”

She debated in the air, spinning, but Arkane motioned vehemently with one hand and finally she jetted down to the box. Each stormflier took a strap of the box and painstakingly lifted it, carrying it away.

“Arkane, get out!” Casey had finally realized what was going on, though he couldn’t know about the empty space below Arkane unless he’d been told by Zenith. He backed up slightly, obviously terrified. “Come on!”

A boulder crashed down. Arkane knew that the cliff was failing, and they finally moved. There was no way to get out of the impact radius of the rockfall, and they had no idea where the hollow ground was, but perhaps if they backed up close to the wall they could avoid the worst of it. It had to be solid there - the rock sloped into the ground, there had to be at least a bit of something to stand on. And it was slightly sheltered. Maybe they wouldn’t die if they were in partial cover -

As they moved, they saw part of the ground fall away, revealing a thin, irregular crevasse below. Their heart jumped; a rock fell into the crack and bounced away into the darkness. They glanced up-

The cliff collapsed.

“ARKANE!” A raw scream from Casey, who - unable to decide whether to run forwards or back - had fallen to his knees. Orca grabbed his arm and wrenched him backwards, away from the snow and rock.

“Epsilon, get help!”

Anything else they said was drowned out in the sound of falling rocks and snow. Arkane glimpsed their team once, staring back, before a curtain of snow and rubble descended between them.

Arkane pulled their mask up. Maybe -

Something - a heavy chunk of snow or ice? A rock? - cracked into their shoulder, knocking them down with a cry. Then another chunk of the rockfall caught their head and the world winked away into blackness.


	35. The Amelia: Rough Landing

The _Amelia_ had been hovering outside Xovan Orbital for no more than thirty seconds before the first ship came through.

It was a small, unmarked ship, completely black. It seemed almost like a pirate ship, but it was too sleek and shiny for that. Raleigh was about to scan it, but was distracted by the fact that another ship came through.

And another, and another. Ship by ship, an entire fleet was jumping in from some nearby point in space. Vari let the _Amelia_ drift backwards towards the Core, away from whatever was happening.

“I don’t like this,” Charis stated. “This- this is planned.”

More ships came through, and they started taking up positions around Xovan Orbital. Some of the smaller ones whipped around the sides.

Emergency defender ships had been deployed- they were unmanned, drones that were capable of taking on pirates. But they weren’t designed for this fleet- the drones were targeted and systematically destroyed by the new fleet, shot to pieces almost effortlessly.

“Oh-oh,” said Vari, watching this. Bits of drone drifted through space.

A blue-green personal frigate popped into existence out of an FTL jump and soared majestically past the fleet, towards one of the larger bays. This one hadn’t been open when the _Amelia_ had made her exit. Raleigh watched the door open, and air rushed out into space, along with… what appeared to be people, who had been standing inside somewhere. She was appalled. Whoever was aboard that blue-green ship had just _killed_ whoever was in the bay! Why? For what purpose?

“Holy shit,” whispered Vari, just as Charis went, “Oh!”

“That was messed up,” Raleigh concluded.

“We have to make absolutely certain Xovan Orbital does not fall to these monsters,” Charis decided, face settling into a determined scowl.

Vari almost laughed. “_What?_ Commander, you realize this ship doesn’t have guns? We can’t take it back!”

“Yes, we can.”

“Yeah, sure. Us and what army?” He spread his hands out, staring at her.

Charis thumped the back of Vari’s chair with one fist. “The biggest one in the galaxy,” she growled. “Call the Traders’ Fleet.”

“Oh.” Vari stared at her. “Are you sure? That’s kind of… a big deal.”

“So is Xovan Orbital. Do it!”

Vari turned to the main screens and tried to raise the Fleet on long-range comms. Raleigh watched and waited. After a few seconds, he paused, hands hovering over the flickering holographic controls. “Uhhhhhh, I can’t,” he said, sounding slightly panicky. “We’re jammed.”

“Jammed? What do you mean?!”

“I mean something’s blocking incoming and outgoing signals from our ship! And I can’t tell if it’s originating here or somewhere else- there might be a wide jammer in that fleet somewhere, but that’s not as likely-“

Dr. Vivaki appeared in the hall leading off the bridge. “Commander,” she gasped- she’d been running. “Dr. Anulohr has locked himself in the medical bay. The door won’t respond to my commands and he won’t answer anything we call through to him.”

Charis, now standing between Vari’s section of the bridge and the main part, stared at Dr. Vivaki for a second. Her face twisted into a venomous scowl and she pressed one hand against her short-range comms and growled, “Raleigh, Phrell, with me. Vari, I will return shortly. You’ll have your jammer removed.”

-

Charis rammed her shoulder into the door; nothing happened.

“As I thought,” she muttered. “The panel. Quickly!”

Raleigh got to work immediately, overriding the panel as quickly as she could. It was a rather sloppily done job of sealing it- it had been done in a hurry. Oddly enough, it almost seemed as if it had been done from the outside, rather than in.

“Got it,” she announced, as Phrell arrived behind them. The door slid smoothly open. Charis burst through, gun out, and found Misalu frantically working at his console.

“No!” he cried, just as she swept past the console, taking him with her. She slammed him against the wall, pinning him there with one arm and a handful of his coat, and shoved her gun under his chin before he could get his armor closed. He froze. She felt him breathing shallowly.

“What. Are. You. Doing.”

Phrell stalked in through the med bay door. “You scum,” xi snarled, yellow eyes narrowed.

“I swear to you,” Misalu managed, holding his hands up against the wall, “that this is not what you think it is.”

“It _sure as hell_ seems like it!”

“What do you think I’m doing, then?”

“Jamming our comms. Phrell, disable it.”

“My pleasure,” Phrell purred. Xi swept forward towards the console, glimmering in the low light. Raleigh stepped aside to let xir pass. Out of the corner of her eye, Raleigh noticed that the plants were secured against the wall with a semi-elastic band.

Misalu made a motion as if to reach out for the console, but Charis pushed her gun a little harder against his throat and he went still.

“Please, don’t touch that,” he managed.

“The nerve,” Charis muttered. “You- this is Shadowside if I’ve ever seen it. You traitorous weasel, you’re betraying us to _them_, and you had the _nerve_ to say you were with the Fleet-“

Misalu stopped her with, strangely, a laugh. Charis stopped while he pressed his head back against the wall and tried to contain himself, eventually dropping his hands and shaking his head.

“You… you thought I was _with_ Shadowside? They tried to recruit me and I refused. I’m working _against_ them,” he gasped.

Charis stared at him.

“I can’t believe this,” he grinned, just as Phrell said, “Well, that’s odd.”

Raleigh watched from afar, glancing between the two of them and Phrell with the console.

“Someone is jamming your long-range comms. I tried to get to the bridge to disable the jammer, but they sealed me in here. I don’t know who it is. I managed to hack into the comms and disrupt the jammer, it should have taken effect just now, you have to listen to me and _not_ shoot me…”

Vari’s voice sounded through their comms. “Jammer’s offline! And, uhh… oh, Commander, you’d better get up here.”

“Who do you work for?” Charis demanded, not letting Misalu go.

“The Traders’ Fleet authority! I’ve been trying to find out a bit more about Shadowside because of their ship raiding patterns. The Fleet preferred you remain in the dark in the event one of you was an agent. Commander, with all due and well-earned respect, you’re not exactly the most discerning person when it comes to who you allow on board your ship.”

Charis was finally convinced. She pulled her gun away and let go of Misalu’s coat lapel. He felt at his throat with one hand and coughed.

“Thank you,” he sighed, straightening up. “That was uncomfortable.”

“The jammer’s disabled?” she asked to Vari, on the comms.

“Yes. And the nearest Fleet ship wants to talk to you. Please hurry, I am not great at stalling them and I don’t think you want me as our spokesperson.”

Charis nodded. “All of you, with me,” she snapped, as she headed out of the room.

“Does she do that as a natural reflex?” Misalu wondered, recovering against the wall.

“Maybe,” Raleigh said. “You’d better obey.”

“Right, of course, at once.”

Raleigh allowed herself a small smile before she hurried out of the med bay and back to her position on the bridge. Charis got there seconds before her, and she managed to catch the start of the conversation between Charis and the other ship.

“This is Commander Elmina Charis of the security branch of the Traders’ Fleet, requesting immediate assistance and fleet mobilization from the Traders’ Fleet.”

“Well, that’s certainly a request,” said a voice from the other end. “Why?”

“Xovan Orbital has fallen to an unknown force that we believe is Shadowside. They have completely decimated Xovan Orbital’s defenses and have total control of the station. The fleet is… large.”

“By the way, we need your identification,” Vari piped up.

The voice on the other end rattled off a few liquid-sounding words that were clearly fyaeiarnae. “...that’s our official classification, if you wanted it. Everyone finds it easier to identify us by the _T.F.S. Aphela_.”

“Lovely,” Charis said, not immediately knowing which ship that was and forging onwards anyways. “Well, we need you. And any other Traders’ Fleet ships in the immediate vicinity. _Now._”

There was a pause. The voice on the other end called, “Elilae, we’re heading that direction anyways, aren’t we?”

“Yes, captain,” said someone else.

“We may as well swing by. Hold on, Amelia. We’ll be there soon. Give us a few moments to pop our core out and fire up the FTL.”

“Thank you. Commander Charis out.” Charis slammed the comms off and stood there for a moment, breathing hard. “Vari, do anything you can to cloak us.”

“I’ve already shut off the emissions and engaged light shields,” Vari said. “Not much else we can do besides that. If anyone decides to scan in this direction, we’re pretty much doomed. Same goes if we try and get out- they’ll chase us down once we pop out of FTL and we’re screwed. No way Shadowside would let a witness ship get away.”

“Good to know,” Charis said, in a voice that made it abundantly clear that she wanted very much for Vari to stop talking.

He did, and instead busied himself with switching on the outside cams to watch for danger. Raleigh crept up next to them and glanced up and outwards, waiting.

Watching and waiting.

Minutes crept by. The black ships surrounding Xovan Orbital seemed nearly motionless, hanging in formation. The large blue-green ship had sailed into the bay and the doors were now closed behind it.

Silence.

Then….

“There!” Vari pointed. A ship had just dropped out of FTL, small in size, but not black like the Shadowside ships.

“Good. The fighting ships are showing up- look, there’s more coming out of FTL.” Charis seemed relieved.

“Great,” Vari said, equally relieved. He sat back in the chair, gazing at the screens around him, then frowned and leaned forwards again, peering at the rapidly growing number of ships. “Hold on,” he said. “Is that…”

“That’s a fyaeiarnae carrier,” Raleigh supplied, peering at the display. “Looks like Rulil, from the coloring.”

“What’s that doing here? It shouldn’t- My god!”

“Holy…”

The beast that had just dropped out of FTL travel dwarfed any other ship in the area. Her massive form was adorned by eight slowly waving tentacles that were currently uncurling from below her body and Raleigh saw the shells recovering the glowing drive core on her belly as she readied herself for combat.

“That’s a dreadnought,” Raleigh said, tingles running down her entire body at the sight of the thing.

“Not just any dreadnought. That’s… _Aphela_, the fyaeiarnae flagship. I should have realized when they said her name. I didn’t remember…” Vari stared at _Aphela_, awed. “She’s a kilometer long…”

The huge creature was sailing serenely towards them and banked at a startling speed, turning herself to face Xovan Orbital.

“She’s got her main cannon pointed towards the station,” Charis muttered. “Not sure how that’ll go.”

“Not towards the station. Towards the pirates,” Vari corrected. “Oh, and they had better be scared. No one in the universe wants to see _that_ gun pointed towards them.”

“Those guys are really in for it,” Raleigh murmured, staring.

The lower left eye, facing the _Amelia_, slowly rolled over and focused on them. It stayed there for a second.

“She’s looking at us,” Vari whispered unnecessarily.

“Is that good?” Charis asked.

“I think so.”

There was a pause. “It is,” Raleigh said suddenly, remembering the ships she had been discussing with Kthfthkthir. “It means she knows where we are, and won’t hurt us in the battle.”

“Battle,” Vari said, sounding faintly terrified. “Yay.”

“All of her eyes can move independently,” Raleigh said, for no reason. It garnered no response.

“Look at the Shadowside ships.” Phrell redirected everyone’s attention to the attacking ships, which were now scrambling to reform into some sort of defensive configuration. They were also putting the station behind them, which was smart- _Aphela_ wouldn’t dare fire directly at the station. Ships could dodge, but the station could not, and there was no way that the station wouldn’t take damage from a shot like one of _Aphela_’s.

“Scrambling around like ants in a kicked-over anthill,” Vari said, voice heavy with satisfaction.

“Did you kick over anthills as a child?” Charis queried immediately, raising one eyebrow.

“No. But I saw what it does ‘cause other kids did it.”

Charis glanced over at Raleigh and Phrell. “You’re alright. Head back to your posts. Phrell… stay out of trouble somewhere.”

“Of course,” Phrell sighed, dipping xir head in acknowledgement.

Charis frowned as xi walked away, then turned. “Actually,” she called, holding out one hand. “Tell the crew members to secure any loose items in case we end up being part of this battle.”

“Which we shouldn’t!” Vari shouted, adding to her statement.

“Be prepared for any eventuality,” Charis said, as if reciting something. Her eyes were focused on a point in space in front of her.

“I will do as asked.” Phrell dipped xir head again and hurried off, faster than before. Raleigh returned to her post at the navigator bench. Some of the others glanced over at her enviously and she shrugged. She didn’t know why Charis kept taking her places-

-_the commander has a certain fondness for you-_

-but she couldn’t really take them along as well. She settled into her place, flicked a few of the items on her HUD around, and checked on the shields. They were functioning perfectly.

A few minutes of peace were not something found on board the _Amelia_.

“Oh, no,” was not something Raleigh wanted to hear Vari say, especially not if it was followed by “Oh, _shit._ Oh shit. They saw us.”

“Um, who?” Raleigh asked, nervous.

“Enemies,” Vari muttered, and then Raleigh heard the characteristic whine of the _Amelia_’s engines powering up, preparing her for quick movements. That couldn’t be good.

“Crew, prepare for evasive maneuvers. No point in staying undetected now.”

Raleigh swallowed, fear rising in her throat. This was something she had never thought would happen- actual space combat aboard the _Amelia_. Well, she’d had some education in what to do.

All she really had to do was manage the shields.

“Incoming,” Vari muttered. The screens that had shown the arriving _Aphela_ and her companion ships flicked back to displays.

The _Amelia_’s sensors detected four ships incoming. “We don’t have real guns,” Raleigh whispered worriedly to herself, and watched as the ships jetted towards them.

“Getting a hail,” called one of the secondaries to Vari. He answered it.

“Hold tight, _Amelia_,” called a jovial fyaeiarnae voice. “I’ve got your left. _Laeilerus_ coming in.”

“I’ve got the right,” called a distinctly human voice. “_Skyjoy_ here.”

Raleigh let out a breath. Two fighters protecting them? They’d be alright. Still, she redistributed the kinetic power towards the front of the ship, facing Xovan and its station. From here, she could see both the light and dark sides of the Ring. It really was quite beautiful.

“Thanks, fighters,” Vari called, to both fighters at once. “Four Shadowside ships coming in if you weren’t aware.”

“We got it,” called the _Skyjoy_’s pilot. Raleigh watched in awe as a sleek shape came shooting in and whipped past the Shadowside ships. Moments later, an explosion burst silently out, shaking the ship, and the _Skyjoy_ curved around in a neat arc, shining in the Corelight streaming towards it.

Next came the _Laeilerus_, a sleek silver ship like a barracuda, wiggling oddly in its flight. Still, it was fast, and Raleigh could spot the heavy guns mounted on the front and sides. It curled around and shot a few gleaming blasts, two of which cracked neatly into their target, another Shadowside ship. Two of the four ships were now damaged.

“Yeah!” cheered the secondary to Raleigh’s left. She allowed herself a smile, but scanned around just in case-

“Behind us!” she shouted, she detected a ship uncloaking and taking aim at the _Amelia_’s weak aft section. She tried frantically to redistribute shields, but the ship was faster, and by the time she managed to get the shields up, the ship was already hit.

Alarm tones, and it shook. Raleigh was slammed forwards and bonked her head into the console with a muffled yelp.

“Shit!” Vari yelled, trying to compensate. “Get those shields up!”

“Working on it!”

-

Phrell froze as the entire ship rocked. Fortunately, xir grip on the railing made it possible to remain where xi was rather than being knocked about.

Xi’d seen on the sensors that someone was creeping around in this engine area, back where the shields were. So xi was checking it out.

The engine room was humming, working contentedly, though it was a little distressed from the hull shot the _Amelia_ had just taken and the shield generators were working frantically to keep up with Raleigh’s adjustments. It was actually really interesting to watch them respond to her far-away commands.

But that’s not why Phrell was here. Xi was here to figure out who was down here…

Misalu was xir first thought, but xi dismissed it almost immediately. He had proven himself actually loyal to the _Amelia_’s crew, and he was up in the bridge area with Charis and Raleigh and the rest of them. No, it wasn’t him.

Kthfthkthir? Phrell didn’t know where the khavvichthi was, and hypothetically it could be down here ready for engine problems to arise. There were other crew members on their way here- they had to be ready to help the engines if things went downhill. But Kthy was probably amongst them, not ahead of them…

So who was it?

Phrell carefully transferred xirself to a new railing, swinging upside down and clinging with xir front feet while xi hooked xir back feet over the railing to support xirself and curled xir tail around it. Someone was down in the engine area. Xi could now see flickers of movement, a swirling of a humanoid figure with a coat…

_Dewbud_.

Of course. The strange nyphelim that xi xirself had brought on board. Of course it was him.

Phrell waited until the figure was below xir, then dropped, flipping xirself in the air and landing squarely on him. It knocked him to the ground and he yelped out loud.

“Move, and I’ll kill you,” Phrell snarled next to his head.

He stayed still for a second, then twitched and Phrell felt a faint sting in xir side. A dagger! Disgusted, xi flicked xir fangs out and attempted to sink them into Dewbud’s throat.

He was faster. He managed to wriggle out from underneath xir paws and scramble away. Tail lashing, Phrell leaped at him again, fangs bared, and he barely brought his arm up in time to parry and knock xir muzzle away.

Then he struck forwards, scoring a massive line across xir muzzle, a streak of fire blazing up as his blade slashed through xir feathers and flesh. It narrowly missed one of xir eyes and xi yelped and hissed in pain. That would scar.

Phrell snapped at him again, then reached for him with a front leg, aiming to close xir hand around one arm and immobilize him by sitting on him again. He saw this coming and stabbed at xir leg again, leaving a small slash behind.

I hope those aren’t poisoned, Phrell thought, now slightly worried about this fight. He’s definitely a more skilled fighter than I expected. I mean, I doubt he’s fought many vikyrelle, but I actually have no confirmation of that. And I don’t know his background. I may have made a mistake.

Dewbud whipped a larger fighting dagger out of his coat and slashed it at Phrell again. Xi jerked back in time to avoid a vicious cut to the throat and the dagger whisked past, not even touching xir feathers.

Time for a slightly different approach. Phrell’s tail wasn’t fully prehensile, so xi couldn’t actually curl it around Dewbud’s body, but a solid thwack from it should knock the air out of him and give xir enough time to kill him. Phrell whirled and brought xir tail towards Dewbud at a frighteningly high speed, and he didn’t dodge in time- the impact slammed him into a nearby engine component, a large metal cylinder. He stood there for a moment, dazed.

Phrell finished xir turn and leaped at him, pinning him there with one hand while bracing xirself on the rail around the engine component with the other. Perhaps he should be kept for questioning? Or so that he could be turned into the law? But what could he do while he was free?

While Phrell was debating over the decision, Dewbud regained his full senses and took the opportunity to drive the hilt of his dagger several times, full-force, into Phrell’s hand on the railing. Xi felt some of the bones snap and reeled back, letting out an ungodly screech of pain. Dewbud watched as xi stumbled backwards and fell to the ground before turning and whisking away into the darkness.

-

Something came through one of the audio feeds- a horrific screaming sound. Vari frowned, glancing over at the in-ship security feeds. “What…?”

“What is it?” Charis asked, from next to him.

“Something weird on the security feeds. I don’t see anything, but that was a really strange noise. Engine area. Send someone?”

“There’s already a few engineers on the way there, with Elliot and Kthfthkthir,” Charis said. “But I’ll go too. Could be… something.”

“’Kay.”

Raleigh glanced up in time to catch a glimpse of Charis hurrying away off the bridge, towards the rest of the ship. There had been a lot of running going on in these past ten minutes.

The _Amelia_’s mystery attacker had vanished again. “Can’t spot the ship,” Raleigh called up to Vari, worried. “It cloaked again. And it’s better than the ghost ship- there’s no emissions to track.”

“Damn,” Vari muttered. “Cover the whole ship, then.”

Raleigh nodded, redistributing the shield power yet again to cover the entire ship. This wasn’t good.

“_Skyjoy_, _Laeilerus_, there’s a cloaked ship around somewhere. We can’t detect it now. Hit us once and vanished.”

“On it, _Amelia_,” called the _Laeilerus_’s pilot again, not grasping the situation.

“No, I’m saying it can take you out without you noticing unless you keep moving. I think it has to uncloak to fire but that thing is _fast_.”

“Oh. Roger that,” the _Skyjoy_ pilot said, sounding a little worried. “Okay.”

As he said that, the _Skyjoy_ went zipping past and curved around again, searching for the mystery ship.

The _Amelia_ suddenly lurched. “What the hell was that?” Vari said, and then an insistent beeping drew his attention. “Oh! Damage in the engine room. How?! We weren’t hit! Our equipment’s being damaged. Someone’s in there, sabotaging the engines. _Charis, hurry!”_

Raleigh couldn’t guard against sabotage. She just hoped Charis would get there soon enough.

“Nearing engine room,” Charis said, over the comms. Raleigh could hear the frantic pounding of her boots on the floor. “There’s some crew members here. Hatch down is… open. Some folks in there.”

“And?!” Vari demanded, deciding on a new course for the ship.

“I don’t know. We don’t see anyone down here. I’ll keep searching.” Her comms cut out.

“Great. Just great,” Vari muttered to himself- Raleigh realized her eavesdropper was on, somehow, and she hadn’t noticed. “First they take Orbital. Then we get hit. There’s a _new_ mystery ship. And someone’s sabotaging the engines. You know what, it’s time to go somewhere safer.”

With that, he turned the _Amelia_ and started towards the gathered fleet that was somehow _still_ jumping in from other areas. It was massive.

“The _Aphela_ probably counts as cover,” Vari murmured.

Yeah, Raleigh thought. I bet it does.

The _Amelia_ shuddered again, from residual engine damage.

“Got some real bad stuff here,” Charis reported in, turning her comms back on and contacting both Vari and Raleigh. “A lot of broken consoles.”

Kthfthkthir’s robotic text-to-speech cut in. “I am attempting to help Chief Engineer Elliot repair the damage. With the two of us, we should be able to do something.”

“Okay, well, is that it?”

“No,” Charis murmured. “Phrell’s here.”

“Phrell?” Vari paused, baffled. “Did… is Phrell responsible for sabotage?” He sounded like he didn’t believe it.

“No, xi’s unconscious. Hurt pretty badly, too. I think xi had a fight with someone.”

“That means… Where’s that someone now?”

“I don’t know.” Charis cut her comms again.

Raleigh swallowed. Who would attack Phrell? And why? If Phrell had seen someone in the engine room xi might’ve gone for them, but… no, that’s definitely the kind of thing Phrell would do without telling anyone else. And it apparently hadn’t worked out for them.

“_Amelia_, keep on your current course and-“ said the _Skyjoy_ pilot, and then his ship exploded. Raleigh shrieked, startled, but the ship had been hanging motionless, and was now spiraling through space in a lot of different pieces.

“Oh!” Vari managed, and tried to power the _Amelia_ forwards. For some reason, her engines weren’t responding at full power. He raised Charis again, still keeping Raleigh in the conversation. “Charis, engines aren’t at full power. Get Elliot to fix it!”

“He’s trying, with half his consoles broken,” Charis replied. “I’m coming back to the bridge.”

“I’m going to try and get us out of here,” Vari told her.

“Good.” Charis cut her comms off again.

Raleigh searched behind them. The invisible ship was… still invisible.

“_Amelia_, I can’t keep five ships off you,” the _Laeilerus_ pilot reported in, sounding quite worried now. “Get to _Aphela_ as quickly as possible.”

“We’re trying, _Laeilerus,_ but someone cut our engine power and this is as fast as we can go.”

The Shadowside attacking ships lined up and began to pepper the _Amelia_ with small gunfire. Raleigh boosted the shields, thankful that whoever had attacked the engines apparently hadn’t paid enough attention to realize that the shield generators were also there and could have been destroyed. Or maybe Phrell had ‘dissuaded’ them. She silently thanked Phrell.

“Okay, we’re taking some serious heat here,” Vari reported. “I’m going to have to try and divert some- what do you want?”

Raleigh glanced up in time to see Dewbud hurry up to the helmsman’s spot and descend the three steps to where Vari was.

“Look, I don’t- whoa! Hey, don’t-”

There was a nauseating cracking sound, and that was it. Silence.

Charis went sprinting by as Raleigh scrambled up and bolted for Vari. Dewbud spun his gun, aiming it at Vari’s slumped-over form. Without hesitating Charis shot him, twice, knocking him backwards. His gun went off and Raleigh’s stomach dropped. Charis hurried down the steps and strode over and glanced at Dewbud- neither of her shots had been lethal, but he was incapacitated. She dealt him a quick blow to the head with the butt of her pistol and knocked him out for the time being.

Raleigh looked Vari over and noted that Dewbud’s bullet had hit him, but not where she feared- he was bleeding from the left upper arm, but it wasn’t lethal.

“Misalu, get everything medical you have and bring it here, now,” Charis ordered. The _Amelia_ was drifting silently through space now, unmanned, still taking small guns fire from the Shadowside ships. The _Laeilerus_ was frantically trying to raise them and failing.

Charis answered the hails. “This is the _Amelia_,” she reported.

“What happened to you?” the _Laeilerus_ pilot asked, frightened. “You just stopped answering.”

“Someone on-board shot our helmsman. He’s down right now.”

“Someone on-board – what’s going on?”

“We’re having our own troubles. We don’t have time to explain that. Do we have anyone else coming in to cover us?”

“No,” the pilot responded, and went silent. “And, ah… you need to move. _Aphela_’s going to shoot in something of this direction and you’re potentially in danger. There’s a cluster of ships and we’re between her and them, so…”

“Good to know,” Charis said. “Thanks. We’ll get moving as soon as possible.”

Misalu appeared, breathless, and carrying a white canvas bag.

“Sedate him,” Charis ordered, pointing at Dewbud. Misalu ignored her, noting the bleeding Vari instantly.

“What happened?” he asked, expression a mixture of fear and concern.

“Dewbud shot him. Sedate that idiot, then fix Vari.”

From the bag, Misalu procured a small vial of blue liquid and a syringe, then- in what might have been record time- used it to inject the liquid into Dewbud’s prone form. “He won’t be waking up any time soon, but he won’t bleed out.”

“Good.”

Turning to Vari, Misalu carefully pulled him out of the pilot’s chair and laid him on the ground. He crouched down and surveyed the damage, then carefully patted the side of the pilot’s face. “Oh, wake up, you foolish man,” he murmured, gazing worriedly down at him.

Vari stirred. He groaned and tried to move his left arm; immediately he stopped, letting out an agonized noise instead.

“Upper arm. It went through to his chest as well,” Misalu murmured, crouched next to him. Vari muttered something, and Misalu frowned and leaned closer. “What?”

“Raleigh,” Vari called. “Take the ship.”

What?!

“Uh, what?”

“Fly her. Do it.”

“I can’t fly this ship!” Raleigh panicked. “I don’t know how!”

“You can do it. I’ve been teaching you.”

“What?”

“Just take it!” Vari squeezed his eyes shut, hands balled into fists in pain.

Terrified, Raleigh looked up at Misalu and Charis.

“Go,” Misalu said. “I’ve got him. I’m a doctor.”

“Charis?” Raleigh turned to her, pleading.

“Vari doesn’t lie,” Charis said. “Get in the chair. If he says you can do it, then you can.”

Raleigh hesitantly slid into the pilot’s chair. Abruptly she felt the deep thrum of power beneath her fingertips as she laid her hands down on the control board. It lit up.

“Welcome, Secondary Tereiti.”

“Tell it to skip the protocols,” Vari hollered from the floor.

“Skip the protocols,” Raleigh said dutifully. The controls went back to flight and battle.

Raleigh stared at everything, trying to concentrate. You can do this, she told herself. You’ve flown so many simulators. How to acclimate quickly…?

She rearranged her HUD.

“Okay, everyone,” she said, mostly talking to herself. “Vari is out, so I’m flying. Alright.”

“Just get us to safety before we get hit again,” Vari called. “Forget the fleet, they’re too far away. Turn us around and hide inside the Ring to- OW! Son of a bitch!”

“Hold still,” Misalu said patiently. “There’s a bullet in your shoulder.”

“I _know_!”

Raleigh swallowed and stamped her nervousness down, concentrating on the task at hand. Admittedly, a lot of the sims she’d flown had been fighter sims, capable of moves that the _Amelia_ probably couldn’t pull off. She ignored this fact and tested the engines. Still at low power. She debated on what to do for a second-

Suddenly, the engines surged. “Full power restored,” Chief Engineer Elliot called. “Vari, the ship is ready to go.”

“Thank you,” Raleigh said, and tested the engines again. This time they responded beautifully, and she pulled the _Amelia _around and headed away from Xovan Orbital.

“_Amelia_, what are you doing?” The _Laeilerus_ asked.

“Heading away from the danger zone,” Raleigh replied. “It’s not feasible to head for _Aphela_ right now so we’re going inside the Ring.”

“Stay safe,” the _Laeilerus_ told them. “I’ll try and distract these guys while you do that. They’re already scattering because they’re detecting _Aphela_’s warm-up.”

“Thank you.”

They jetted for a few seconds in silence, Raleigh holding the _Amelia_ on her course. They passed managed to clear the distance between Xovan Orbital and Xovan itself, and rounded the side of the Ring, heading for the inside-

Something emerged from the blackness, sliding across the white. Another Shadowside ship, this one another frigate about the same size as the _Amelia_, its nose pointed directly at her. Raleigh barely had the time to react before the ship warmed up and fired.

She nearly panicked, unsure of what to do. They couldn’t shoot the thing out of the air.

But they might be able to block it.

She commandeered the shield controls from her secondary station to the main one. As the projectile round headed for the _Amelia_, Raleigh accessed the ship’s shields, her specialty, and altered them. The computer knew where the round would hit, so Raleigh consolidated almost all of the available counterforce on that point.

Impact. The ship reeled back, but was miraculously unharmed. Raleigh’s concentration of all the kinetic power on a point the size of a quarter had completely deflected the round.

“That’s a new one,” Charis murmured, watching the round gently float away, spinning slightly. Raleigh faced the other ship down- it waited, wary. Somehow it seemed almost familiar. She peered at her sensors, but the ship wasn’t emitting any engine residue-

No, wait. A puff here, a puff there. It matched the signature she had tracked for ages- the ghost ship. This was their tail, then, the ghost ship that had followed them all the way to Iridere and followed them around. It must have been here for a while- searches within the last ten months hadn’t turned up anything in her program. This ship had been here for ages.

“Incoming transmission,” the computer chimed. Raleigh let it through.

“Clearly, your ship is more powerful than ours.” A human voice, male. “We’re leaving the area. We just need to get out. We’ll allow you to pass if you allow us.”

“Who are you?” Charis demanded, leaning in over Raleigh’s shoulder.

“Cendrick, of the _Dawn’s Triumph_, though I don’t see why it should matter. I used to work for Shadowside. I now do not and I am trying to get out. Do we have a deal?”

“Yes,” Charis called, still answering for Raleigh and for the _Amelia_. “We do. Get out of this star system.”

“With pleasure,” said Cendrick. The ship cut its transmission, swiveled around, and fired her engines. In a moment, the black ship was gone against the expanse of space.

Raleigh continued on her improvised course, heading for the inner side of Xovan to hide from the Orbital battle. In the rear camera she could see projectiles and lasers actually flying back and forth now- the battle was in full swing. The _Amelia_ was not designed for such things.

“Sir, we have a few ships on our tail!” Hans, another secondary, reported in.

“How many?” Raleigh asked.

“Er- wait, who… Raleigh?”

“Answer the question!” She didn’t have time to explain the situation to everyone.

“Three!”

“What kinds? Give me stats.” Raleigh pulled up a rear view and located the ships. Hans fed her data. Two frigates and a fighter.

“If you let this ship get hurt, I’m firing you,” Vari shouted from the floor. “In the one minute I’m out of the seat, if she – oi, hey, Misalu, what are you-“

“Shut up,” Misalu sighed.

“Don’t tell me to shuuuaaAAOOW!”

Raleigh fired the _Amelia_’s engines, trying to escape. Maybe the ships weren’t really tracking her…?

“They’ve fired on us,” Hans called.

Damn.

“No hit.”

Raleigh concentrated the shields in the back and slipped the ship a bit to the left to avoid bullets. It was a fighter move and she didn’t even think about it, but the _Amelia_ handled it surprisingly well.

But the actual fighter was much faster. Bullets, absorbed by the kinetic shields, were rapidly draining the _Amelia_’s power.

“Shields at forty—shields at twenty-five percent,” the computer reported. “Shields at twenty percent.”

The ship rocked slightly.

“Shields disabled.”

“What?! How?” Raleigh pushed the _Amelia_ forwards. “Oh, please, please go…”

“Shock torpedo,” Vari called to her. “Not your fault. Designed for shields.” He sounded out of breath.

“Well, the good news is that the bullet’s out of your body,” Misalu said, sounding relieved and a little bit proud of himself. “But you can’t use your arm or shoulder or you might damage the wound more.”

The ship shook from some sort of impact. Raleigh squeaked.

“Let me up,” Vari snapped.

“No.”

“Let me up.” Some clunking noises, and a startled exclamation from Misalu. Vari staggered up, still breathing hard, and leaned on the arm of the chair. “Okay. Where are we headed?”

“Not sure,” Raleigh chewed on her lip. “In.”

Vari nodded. “In.”

The ship shuddered again, and an alarm went off. Then another.

“Okay, so, maybe down,” Vari muttered. Behind him, Misalu reached over and positioned his arm, then began to wrap a sort of makeshift sling around his arm and shoulder. Vari didn’t react much other than to hold still and occasionally wince. His bloodied shirt had been discarded, and the red was very slowly staining the padding on his shoulder. Misalu occasionally made a quick flicking motion, slashing easily through the bandages with his claws and pinning the ends into themselves safely. He was very capable, though… he never let his claws graze Vari’s skin.

And the ship was hit again. This time, the connection to her engines was interrupted and she started falling, drawn by Xovan’s gravity down towards the distant ice. There was a moment of utter silence as the Ring rapidly grew larger in the viewscreens and the white band turned into a white world more around them than below them.

“Definitely down,” Vari managed. “’Kay, we’re not dead yet… Raleigh?”

Raleigh couldn’t speak. She tried to access the subjets, but they weren’t responding properly. She did manage to get the wings out, which would give her some measure of control…

She fired forwards with what little engine power they had left, effectively shunting their momentum forwards rather than down.

“Good,” Vari said. He flicked a few windows around with his good arm, bringing up a secondary control in the main display. “This isn’t bad.”

They were still falling, but from what Raleigh could see, there was only flat tundra plains below them. Not bad. If they had to crash somewhere, a plain was the place to do it.

“Hold on, everybody,” Raleigh called over the ship-wide comms, heart in her throat. “We’re going to make a very rough landing very soon. So… secure yourselves.” She tried to figure how long it would be before they could land. On these plains, it wouldn’t be bad…

And then they cleared the plains and started skimming mountains. Black and white peaks buried in gray clouds and fog.

“Oh, why,” Raleigh managed, eyes fixed on the screens. Vari started trying to go around the main engine connection to find some way to restore power.

Peaks appeared out of the mist, showed up on the scanners seconds before they were due to hit them. Raleigh rocked the ship back and forth, occasionally skewing violently to one side to avoid mountaintops.

“Go for the pass!” Vari said to her, pointing at a specific area ahead of them where a pathway cut through the mountains. There was a gap between two peaks that they might be able to fit through if they got a little height.

Raleigh fired the subjets- and nothing happened. They still weren’t working. The pass was too narrow at this height, they’d lose the wings if they tried to fit through.

Fighter, she thought, and pulled the wings halfway in. then she hit the directional side jets and spun the ship completely sideways.

She slipped through without a scratch.

And the subjets, still activated, started suddenly working. The ship whirled in a full circle and cracked into a cliff, shaking everything. Raleigh nearly knocked herself out on the control console. She tried to right the ship and managed to get it to stop spinning around and be somewhat right-side-up, but it was still hurtling forwards and downwards, headed for what looked like a glacier. Raleigh tried to brake-

The nose hit first. It became a pivot point as the _Amelia_ flipped completely over, doing a full circle and crashing down on her belly. She slid a bit and finally came to a halt. Rumbling, alarms, shaking, and then silence. With alarms.

Raleigh’s neck hurt. She touched it gingerly.

“Holy shit,” Vari murmured. “You actually did it. Wow.”

“Thanks for the vote of confidence,” she replied shakily.

“No, I mean… I don’t know if I could have done that. With two arms.” Vari paused. “Guess I shouldn’t make fun of fighter sims anymore.”

“Oh.” Raleigh rubbed her sternum, where something had cracked into it during the crash. “Ow.”

“Is everyone alright?” Charis called, from across the bridge where she had apparently been thrown during the crash.

“A bit bruised is all,” called Misalu. “Some of the crewmates may have broken bones.”

“Well, I was shot,” Vari began.

“But I’m quite alright,” Misalu finished, shooting Vari an annoyed glance. “As long as I have time, and as long as my _patients cooperate_, I will be easily able to treat most injuries occurring from this incident. Still, it would be good to ensure now that there are no worse injuries…”

“Can we please move Dewbud out of here?” Vari asked suddenly, glancing over at the nyphelim’s still form. “I don’t want him waking up and trying to kill me again.”

“That will also be taken care of,” Misalu said. “But perhaps get some of the crew members to carry him to Tessana. She will be able to treat him.”

“What, you can’t?”

“I would rather not.” Misalu glared at Dewbud. “I have a certain distaste for him. I will do it, but I would prefer to pass him off to someone else.”

“Does anyone know where we are?” Charis asked. “Are we near any civilizations, any place with medical facilities…? I don’t know if any of us can treat Phrell.”

“What happened to Phrelyuquia?” Misalu asked, glancing up.

“Broken hand. I think Dewbud must have hit it.”

“Oh, that is _not_ good…”

“We need to make sure everyone is okay. Then we need to figure out where we are. Then we need to call for help. Or something.”

Raleigh nodded. “Vari… do you, um, do you want your seat back?”

Vari opened his mouth to agree, but Misalu intervened. “No,” the fyaeiarnae said firmly, taking Vari’s good arm. “He’s going to the med bay to ensure that there are no injuries from the crash. He may have no concern for his personal wellbeing, but _some_ of us do.”

Vari glowered, but didn’t protest as Misalu guided him away. He was limping slightly.

“Distress beacon,” Raleigh murmured to herself. “Computer… can we set off a distress beacon?”

“Beacon ready for launch,” the computer called.

“Don’t need to launch it. We’re already crashed. Just send the signal up from where we are on the Ring- or, wait, no. Not yet. Do it in a few hours, when the Orbital battle is over. I don’t want Shadowside ships tracking us to down here.”

“Operation complete. Beacon will activate in two hours,” the computer said musically.

Several dazed crew members came and picked up Dewbud, carrying him off- presumably to the med bay. Charis came in after they were gone and put a hand on Raleigh’s shoulder. “Well done,” she said, smiling down at her. “Thank you. And I’m glad you’re on my ship. There’s no one else I would have trusted to do that.”

Raleigh grinned up at her, shaking slightly from the intensity of the crash landing. “Thanks,” she replied.

“You should go to the med bay too. I wouldn’t be surprised if you need to take a rest after that. And make sure you haven’t broken anything. I’ll handle everything else from here.”

Raleigh nodded. Charis stood there for a moment more, then turned and strode off to go coordinate the crew. Raleigh leaned back in her chair, letting out a breath. They’d gotten out of the battle, they’d survived that landing, and they were alive. That meant that they could do anything.

They were alive.


	36. Shadowside: Who Claims the Sky?

Morpho’s fleet didn’t officially have a flagship. It only had her, at the head of it, in the _Amaranthine_. This was the first time she’d actually been physically present for a movement in a very long time.

There was no point in waiting anymore- her Corrix agent had gone rogue, so she didn’t have to worry about getting him off Corrix with the technology before her attack on Xovan Orbital. May Cendrick be caught by the Watch, Morpho thought, for all that I care. He knew the risks, and he is now subject to attack from Shadowside and from the ordinary authorities.

But that wasn’t the focus of this attack. The focus of this attack was taking Xovan Orbital.

She’d taken a shuttle out of the system, to where her fleet was gathered, and where her ship was waiting. Then she’d boarded and readied them.

The time was right. Now she would take what she needed from Iridere.

“It is time,” she told her assistants, and they scrambled to relay the command. Morpho watched as the first of her ships vanished, shunting into FTL travel and speeding to Iridere. It was a journey of only a few seconds, perhaps a minute at most. Morpho waited until a significant portion of her ships had gone through before allowing the_ Amaranthine_ to follow them.

When her ship popped out of FTL travel in Iridere, she was pleased with what she saw. Her ships had disabled Xovan Orbital’s defenses, and locked all ships there inside the base or disabled them from the outside.

“Transmission for you, Director,” said her helmsman, who was sitting before her.

“From?”

“Dewbud, Madam.”

“Accept it.”

“The _Amelia_ managed to escape the lockdown of Xovan Orbital,” Dewbud said, from somewhere else. “I am currently on board the ship. She’s hovering out of sight, cloaked, watching all this. If I’m right, she’s trying to put in a distress call right now. I’ve jammed the communications- that damn fyaeiarnae, the one you mentioned to me who rejected the recruitment offer, tried to stop me. I’ve locked him inside the medical bay on the ship. He won’t be able to do anything. I am going to disable the _Amelia_’s engines and kill the helmsman. The ship will be open; I won’t alter the shield generators, as you wanted those.”

“Good,” Morpho said, when Dewbud was finished. “Thank you for your consideration regarding the generators. We can strip them out of the ship and research them. Go.”

She cut the transmission, then turned to one of the bridge secondaries. “Is there any sign of Cendrick and his ship?”

“No, sir.”

Morpho sighed. “Ah well. Take us into the station.”

The _Amaranthine_ curved smoothly around, blue-green bulk slipping easily past the smaller ships and aligning towards Xovan Orbital’s docks. Morpho watched as one of her secondaries connected to the station’s systems, overrode them, and opened a locked bay. A rush of air spewed out, along with some unsecure boxes and what looked like a few unfortunate dock workers. Morpho frowned.

“There were workers in there?” Morpho questioned, angling his head towards the bridge secondary in question. The secondary froze, unaware that killing them had not been the optimal plan of action.

“Yes, Madam,” he said slowly, hands hovering over the keyboard.

“Their loss will be noted and docked from your pay,” Morpho sighed, and returned her gaze directly forwards.

The secondary let out a sigh of what seemed to be relief. Morpho ignored it.

The _Amaranthine_ powered forwards, towards the dock. The last of the security drones seemed to have been obliterated; there was only silence outside the ship.

Of course, Morpho mused, there couldn’t be noise. There wasn’t noise in space.

But that was beside the point.

The _Amaranthine_ docked neatly and the doors slid shut behind her. The bay began to pressurize, filling with air so that Morpho could disembark comfortably and claim the station. It might require killing some of the members of Xovan Orbital who were currently in charge of the station, but if it couldn’t be avoided, then it would be done.

It took several minutes for the bay to pressurize. Morpho was about to turn and head for the crew and passenger airlock when one of her secondaries suddenly cried out, drawing her attention.

“Director! Madam Director, there’s… a problem.”

“Explain.”

“Errr- well, um-“

“Now,” Morpho said curtly, turning to face the secondary.

“The _Amelia_’s jammer has been disabled. It’s sending out a signal, calling for help. I don’t know who it’s calling, but-“

“Find out.” Morpho stretched the fingers of her right hand, then re-curled them in, trying to relax it. Any hitch or hiccup in her plan could spell disaster. She did not like it when operatives failed- and the jammer could only mean that Dewbud had made some type of mistake.

Should the _Amelia_’s call for assistance go unheard, the takeover would proceed as planned. But if someone were to pick up the signal Morpho would need to be able to escape. Immediately.

Boarding Xovan Orbital could wait. Morpho ordered the ship closed back down and the area de-pressurized. She wanted to be in space if there was an issue- you couldn’t very well jump to FTL while docked.

That took another minute or so, less because Morpho forced them to rush the process and open the bay doors before the bay was finished depressurizing. A signal over FTL comms could be picked up very quickly- and there was no doubt in Morpho’s mind that the _Amelia_ would call for the Traders’ Fleet, the largest fleet in the galaxy that could be quickly assembled.

She did _not_ want to tangle with the Traders’ Fleet. Well, not any more than she already had. This would count as more.

To Morpho’s knowledge, there weren’t any large collections of Fleet ships anywhere in the nearby systems, or anywhere closer than an hour by FTL away. But ships moved all the time, and even the most officially drawn of schedules could change at a moment’s notice if someone wanted it to.

The docking clamps let go of the _Amaranthine_ and she backed out of the bay, swiveling around. It seemed that the _Amelia_ had drifted further away from Xovan Orbital, heading downwards and towards Xovan’s lightside.

“Raise Dewbud.”

A pause. “No response,” Morpho’s secondary answered her. Morpho felt a deep growl in her throat that she suppressed; it would seem that her ‘master assassin and infiltrator’ had failed her.

“Fine. Shoot the Amelia down.”

“With the _Amaranthine?_”

“No. Set some fighters on her. One of the cloaked ones in with the rest.” The _Amelia_ might have had experience with cloaked ships, but Shadowside’s technology had been upgraded constantly since she first arrived at Iridere, and there was no way they would be able to predict the ways it had changed.

The secondary who had first detected the _Amelia_’s distress signal piped up again. “Madam Director… she’s calling the Traders’ Fleet.”

“Of course.”

“It seems she has a response…”

Oh, no. Morpho paused, uncertain. Flee now? Order a retreat? Wait to see what happened? If they were lucky, they could invade Xovan Orbital completely before anything really happened and use it as a bargaining chip. But if the Fleet was close, then they had to retreat before any of them were caught or destroyed.

Morpho’s train of thought broke immediately as the front cameras picked up a disturbance in space, a strange rippling. Ships were appearing- small, but worrying. Fyaeiarnae ships, from the look of it.

Then a carrier.

Then the largest dreadnought to ever be created in the history of the current galactic races.

Morpho stared as _Aphela_ popped into existence, uncurled her arms, and hid her drive core in her belly again. Around her, ships continued to pop into existence- the entire entourage that normally accompanied her into battle.

And they were _here_.

“We need to leave,” Morpho muttered.

“Director?”

“Abort mission,” Morpho growled. She was furious- this stupid little cargo freighter had managed to spoil one of her largest undertakings yet. Time to get out before they were destroyed utterly, and wait until the situation calmed down before returning to Iridere and retaking all of their places quietly, with time to think of a new plan.

Morpho had put a lot into this effort. It would take a very long time to gather resources for a new plan… and she was old.

“Director, _Aphela_’s aligning herself against us,” one of the secondaries called, audibly nervous. Morpho understood why. The dreadnought was maneuvering with astonishing speed through the vacuum, swiveling to face Morpho’s fleet. And with her kilometer-long main gun, _Aphela_’s face was the last one you wanted to see pointed towards you if you weren’t friendly with her or her operators.

“Call off all attacks,” Morpho ordered. “Order any ship that is currently engaged in combat with _Aphela_’s accompanying forces or docking at Xovan Orbital to cease hostilities immediately and retreat back to the rendezvous point for the attack. We will meet there and disperse quietly.”

“Director, the ships attacking the _Amelia_ are still going after her…”

Morpho almost called them off. Almost. No matter how furious she was at the ship and her crew for ruining the Xovan Orbital takeover, it was never worth it to take petty revenge.

But if the ship continued to exist, there was a chance that her captain – The commander, Charis—would be emboldened enough to continue disrupting Morpho’s operations in the future.

“Destroy her,” Morpho ordered. “Then pull them back.”

“Understood, Director.”

Morpho turned, looking over the shoulders of a few of her secondaries to watch the operations unfold. _Aphela_ was still uncomfortably pointed towards them, her slowly waving fins stabilizing her in space. Morpho’s ships were defending themselves as the still-growing Traders’ Fleet attacked them. If they hadn’t had _Aphela_ and her companion ships, they wouldn’t have amassed such an army… but it had happened, and it was too late to change it now.

She should have had the _Amelia_ destroyed when she’d had the chance, when she’d first entered the system. She hadn’t known how much trouble she would be then, but she’d still had a bad feeling about her. But she was curious- she was impressed, even, with them. She wanted to watch her progress. And she wanted the ship’s shield generators. And that was enough that she had let her keep on flying, through all the Rings, ruining everything she did in the end.

The thing that irked Morpho most about this was the amount of planning that she had put into this versus the amount of planning the _Amelia_ had required to ruin it all. She was a ship that flew in a veritable aura of chaos- everything around her unfolded dramatically into a series of events that rapidly spun out of control. Normally this was simply amusing to watch from afar, but this time, her penchant for insanity and wanton destruction had worked in her favor.

Morpho wasn’t sure she trusted her ships to take care of the _Amelia_ – with her incredible luck, she might escape the battle somehow. If so, Morpho would have to find other ways to keep her far, far, _far_ away from anything she ever did again.

The _Amaranthine_ was dwarfed facing down _Aphela_, one blue-green monster to another.

“Director,” one of his secondaries reported. “The _Amelia_ has taken several shots. She’s being defended by a couple of Traders’ Fleet fighters, but- oh, there went one of them. She’s being defended by _a_ fighter. She also was making for the Fleet force, but her engine power seems to have been cut.”

Engine power cut? Perhaps Dewbud was still active after all. Morpho almost felt a twinge of regret at leaving the assassin behind on the _Amelia_, but it was not worth risking her fleet for. Well, if he lived, he could come back to Shadowside on his own terms. Morpho had no choice but to leave him.

This was all wrong.

“Can we retreat without _Aphela_ firing on us?” Morpho questioned her secondaries, eyes on the dreadnought.

“I’m not sure, madam,” one of them replied. “She’s locked onto us.”

“Not much will stop one of her shells,” another one added.

“Would another ship?”

“Hypothetically speaking, yes…”

The secondary monitoring the _Amelia_ cried out. “Yes! The _Amelia_ tried to hide in Xovan’s lightside, but took a couple hits on the way down. Now she’s crashing.”

That would probably take care of the _Amelia_ and her crew. Though… her pilot was exceptionally skilled. She might survive.

She’d worry about it later. “Good. Call off the ships. Tell them to leave.” She would not sacrifice the attackers who had taken out the _Amelia_.

“Madam Director!” Another secondary, who up until this point had been silent, piped up. “Tracking a signature across the field of battle. Cloaked ship.”

“Who?”

“The _Dawn’s Triumph,_ madam.”

Cendrick. The deserter. Morpho glanced over at the course of Cendrick’s ship- the man was taking it straight through the center of the battle, since his invisibility was good enough that both the emissions and the ship itself were undetectable unless you specifically scanned for the emissions, which occasionally puffed out. Also, elsewhere in the battle would get him spotted by Shadowside ships and destroyed, since they _were_ equipped to find those emissions. As mad as the plan seemed, it was actually sensible.

“Move the _Rydell_ on our right forward slightly,” Morpho suddenly said, taking an opportunity when she saw one.

“Yes, Madam…?”

A few moments passed.

“Back the _Amaranthine_ up,” Morpho instructed again, as Cendrick’s ship passed silently through the stars. “Be ready to go as soon as a distraction is available.”

The _Amaranthine_ slid backwards neatly. Immediately _Aphela_ fired, a flash of light accompanying a spinning shell as it blasted through the battlefield. It clipped the wing of the _Dawn’s Triumph_ – the invisible ship clearly hadn’t registered on _Aphela_’s sensors – and spun away, course changed, slamming full-force into the _Rydell_. An explosion accompanied the impact, and the ship disintegrated.

The _Amaranthine_ then whirled around, pivoting gracefully, and fired her engines, shooting away from the battle. Morpho had no intention of surrendering her ship and fleet to _Aphela_ and the Traders’ Fleet, and she had no intention of dying. It would take _Aphela _some time to reload, and the _Amaranthine_ was able to switch safely to her FTL core and disappear into space.

Safe at last.

-

Meanwhile, the _Dawn’s Triumph_ was spinning out of control, cloaking disabled after the scrape from the dreadnought shell. Cendrick was frantically working the controls with his secondaries, trying to the best of his ability to get the ship out of the line of fire as quickly as possible. He didn’t have an appointed pilot, either- he just had himself. And either of his secondaries could fly. They both had to know how- there were only two of them, after all.

They were hailed by _Aphela_.

“Identify yourself, please,” called a pleasant voice.

“Cendrick, _Dawn’s Triumph,_” Cendrick gasped, managing to stabilize the ship. “Please do not shoot us.”

“Who are you with?”

Cendrick hesitated for a moment. Well, Shadowside wasn’t going to protect him. If he gave himself up to the Iridere authorities, he’d get destroyed for messing with the Corrix experiment. But if he surrendered to the fyaeiarnae military, which _Aphela_ was of course part of, he might be able to escape Iridere’s jurisdiction and thus its punishment, and actually fight against the Corrix experiment…

“I was with Shadowside, but have since left. They have likewise deserted me. I surrender the _Dawn’s Triumph_ to the authority of the fyaeiarnae military, as failing to do so would obviously be suicide, and ask for protection from the Shadowside ships currently attacking Xovan Orbital.”

“Well,” said the voice on the other end, clearly surprised. “That’s interesting. We’ll send out a few fighters to escort you in- you can dock aboard _Ero_ or _Ikarinaya_. Your ship seems to be a bit damaged.”

“Yes, it is. Your shot hit us.” Cendrick was _well_ aware of how close they had come to being totally obliterated. It was not a pleasant thought. “Thank you.”

“No thanks necessary. You’re technically a prisoner.”

“Oh- I have some rather high-value people on board,” Cendrick said hesitantly. “I will need to speak to an authority about them.”

“Define ‘high-value.’”

“They are notable figures from Corrix.”

There was a moment of confused silence. “You will need to speak to someone about that,” the voice returned, after a moment. “I’m not sure how to interpret that statement, or what it means. We’ll take care of it once your ship is secure and you’re able to be transported over to _Aphela_ for interrogation.”

“Good.” Cendrick turned his ship and directed her towards the Traders’ Fleet. Evidently the rest of the ships there had been ordered not to attack him, and the _Dawn’s Triumph_ drifted peacefully between the fighters and frigates of human, fyaeiarnae, and khavvichthi construction towards one of the big fat ray-like carriers. For now, they would wait outside the carrier for instructions while the smaller ships of the Fleet drove the remaining Shadowside forces off or captured them.

Cendrick left the bridge.

Micah had managed to store his lion safely in part of the cargo hold. Aesila was in the crew quarters with Sofeir, and Cendrick assumed that Micah had joined them by that point.

However, this was not true. While headed towards the crew quarters to check if Micah had indeed made it, Cendrick caught a glimpse of the king standing in the main living area, staring out a window.

He made is way carefully over to Micah.

“What is this?” Micah asked, when Cendrick drew near.

Cendrick sighed. He opened his mouth, remembered to switch from the standard galactic tongue to English, and answered. “You’re in space,” he said, and prepared to explain the concept of space.

“Space?”

“Ah – above the sky.”

“There is nothing above the sky save God’s heaven,” Micah said, but he was frowning, staring down.

“I hate to be the one break it to you, but that’s not true,” Cendrick replied, gesturing towards the black expanse speckled with stars and ships. “There’s an entire universe out there. Perhaps more than one.”

“But…”

Silence. Micah glanced back up and focused on the ships. “What are those?”

“Ships. Like mine.”

“Some of them resemble animals.”

“That’s true. They are animals.”

“…I do not understand.”

“Human engineers don’t, either,” Cendrick muttered, shaking his head. “They’re… well, they’re animals, but people made them.”

“Humans cannot create life!”

“Well, humans didn’t. I said people, not humans. The fyaeiarnae did it somehow. They’re the ones that can grow fauna spaceships.”

“The…” Micah paused, not even attempting the word ‘fyaeiarnae.’ “The what?”

“Fyaeiarnae.”

“What are those?”

“They’re aliens, from Eira’a. It’s another planet in another system. Don’t worry about that now,” Cendrick said, seeing Micah’s befuddlement overwhelm him. “Come on. I’m guessing you went looking for Aesila and got lost?”

A nod.

“She’s this way.” Cendrick indicated the crew quarters with a nod of his head. “Follow me.”

He led Micah to the crew quarters, where Aesila was comfortably seated in a chair with Sofeir. She seemed to be examining a tablet of clear silicon, a dormant personal screen.

“What’s this?” she asked Cendrick, as he entered.

Cendrick took the screen from her and turned it on. Aesila wouldn’t know what to do with most of this, so Cendrick picked what he thought would be the most useful function for Aesila, and opened the ship’s electronic library. He flicked the language settings to English and handed it back to her. “This is one function of it,” he told her. “You can read anything the ship has here. There’s a lot… so read as much as you like.”

Aesila’s eyes lit up. “Thank you,” she murmured, pleased. “I will make use of it immediately.”

“Go for it.”

Sofeir, somehow, was sleeping peacefully. Incredible.

Cendrick turned back to Micah. “This is the crew quarters,” he told him. “They- uhhh, they might know how to speak English, but most of them know galactic standard and not much else. So you probably won’t be able to understand them.”

“Are there any that would be able to translate?”

Cendrick was surprised for a moment before remembering that Micah had dealt with language barriers before in his brief run of kingship. “Ah. Perhaps. I will ask the crew if any can translate, and inform them of your presence here. Additionally, we will be soon be docking aboard another ship, and you may encounter some of the fyaeiarnae. Do not be afraid of them- though they look strange, they are people just like you and me.”

Micah nodded uneasily. “I will try,” he said.

Cendrick supposed that was the best he was likely to get from him. “Good enough,” he answered, smiling. “I must go arrange the docking. Stay here.”

When he reached the bridge, he touched one of his secondaries on the shoulder and said, “Can you send out a warning to the crew telling them that Micah and Aesila only speak English, and that they’ll need a translator?”

“Yessir.”

“Thank you.” Cendrick took the helm again and hailed the carrier they were floating beside, which happened to be _Ero_.

“_Dawn’s Triumph_?” the answering fyaeiarnae asked. He sounded like his day had been boring, gotten very exciting, and was going back to boring.

“That’s us.”

“Port-side bays are all open. Pick one that’s large enough. We can redirect fighters that come back- we’ve got extra room with the ships that got destroyed.”

“Thank you very much.” Cendrick aligned the _Dawn’s Triumph_ and brought her neatly in, sliding into a bay that seemed large enough to hold her. It was weird, slipping the ship through the doorway, surrounded by gently undulating skin and flesh. Extending above was the wide, sweeping wing of the ray-ship, also waving slowly up and down.

Cendrick wondered if someone walking through the ship could feel it breathe.

The _Dawn’s Triumph_ docked successfully and the bay sealed behind her. It looked surprisingly normal inside the bay- all steel walls and grating on the floor, normal walkways and railings. Cendrick barely saw hints of flesh anywhere. He didn’t know what he expected, but it wasn’t this.

Someone met him the second he stepped off the ship- a fyaeiarnae in an outfit that integrated his armor neatly, with the wires of shielding running through it. “Welcome aboard,” he greeted Cendrick, holding out one hand. Cendrick shook it.

“Glad to be here,” Cendrick said, glancing around. “I expected it to be more… animal.”

The fyaeiarnae laughed. “Most do. Almost all are disappointed.”

“Damn.”

“I’m Xifiore Osaa,” the fyaeiarnae told Cendrick, beckoning to him as he began to walk down towards the larger part of the ship. “I’m taking you up to the bridge, but I’ll also be handling the treatment of you, your crew, and your ship while you’re here. Nice ship, by the way.”

“Thank you.”

“Where’d you get her?”

“I stole her from Shadowside.”

“Good grab.”

Xifiore led Cendrick through _Ero_’s interior up to the bridge, which was a shorter walk than expected, where he met with the captain.

From there, there was a series of intense discussions and mediations. Cendrick managed to get the fyaeiarnae to leave his poor passengers alone for a day, citing stress and trauma as the reasons, although privately he knew they were faring far better than he had expected them to.

The day after, however, he took a small shuttle ride (in a ship that looked rather like a sea slug, but had a boxy interior) over to _Aphela_ with Micah, Aesila, Sofeir, and- interestingly- Mjoll. Aesila was still holding onto the personal screen, which she had been engrossed in since the previous evening.

The giant lioness drew a lot of attention as she stalked with the party through the halls, but Micah kept one hand on her neck and she behaved herself. Micah himself was having a bit of trouble- the gravity on the ship was stronger than the gravity on Corrix he was used to, and he kept stumbling, forgetting to lift his feet high enough off the ground. Aesila was also finding it difficult, but, as with most things, she was quicker to adjust than her husband was.

Cendrick got the feeling he’d have to adjust the artificial gravity on his ship.

The royal couple were still in the dress they’d been in when they’d fled the palace. It wasn’t as magnificent as, say, event dress, but they were still extremely impressive. Cendrick had put on some of his robes from when he was advisor on Corrix. And Micah, while devoid of armor, still had his crown and sword.

Xifiore was with them, and gestured to the bridge. “The show is yours,” he said, eyes glittering. “Knock ‘em out.”

The bridge was packed with fyaeiarnae, any who had seen Mjoll on the cameras and booked it up to the bridge to get a look at her in real life. Most eyes were on her, but some were on Micah and Aesila. Very few people looked at Cendrick- he thought this was a good thing. You didn’t want your negotiator to be the center of attention.

_Aphela_’s captain, a green-skinned fyaeiarnae in swirling silk dress armor, stepped forward and eyed the group. Steel-gray and green eyes, Cendrick noted. Matching eye and skin color was rather rare.

“Welcome aboard,” she said, surveying all of them. She made eye contact with each member of the group- even Mjoll- in turn, then settled on Cendrick. “I’m guessing you are Cendrick, the pilot and captain of our lovely _Dawn’s Triumph_?”

“That would be me,” Cendrick agreed, and bowed to her. She deserved it.

She was not impressed with that, but she also wasn’t annoyed by it. “I’m Captain Faeja Iusyf, of _Aphela_, flagship of the fyaeiarnae fleet. Now who are these fine people you have brought on board, and what is this animal?”

“Captain Iusyf,” Cendrick said, nailing the pronunciation, “These are friends of mine from Corrix.”

The captain’s facial armor shifted, her expression betraying her surprise. “Interesting,” she said neutrally.

“This is Micah Cyraxis, lately the king of Edrelle, and his wife, the queen, Aesila. This is their daughter, Sofeir.”

“And the animal?”

Before Cendrick could say anything, Micah spoke up. “This is my mount, Mjoll,” he said in English. “I raised her from a cub. She will not be parted from me; do not attempt it.”

Captain Iusyf glanced over at Cendrick, expecting a translation. He obliged.

“Well,” she said, glancing back at Micah and Mjoll. “Tell your impressive friend that his mount will not be taken from him. What is she?”

“A lionness, madame,” Cendrick answered. “She was until lately ridden by the King into battle when it was required.”

The captain glanced around at her still, silent crew. “Someone fetch seating for them,” she snapped, staring directly at a small group of fyaeiarnae in salmon-colored outfits.

“Yes! Sorry, ma’am! At once.” Several of them hurried away, reappearing moments later with chairs for Cendrick and his group. They were seated in the center of the bridge.

“Tell me,” she said, leaning forward. “How did you come to be in the company and possession of a royal couple from Corrix?”

“Shadowside sent me there to retrieve an artifact they found of interest some… ten months ago, I think,” Cendrick related, glancing over at Micah. “His amulet is a prototype shield generator that does not require the wiring normally found in armor for kinetic barriers.”

“Interesting.”

“However, Corrix Watch… detected my influence, and decided that it was necessary to put an end to Micah and his family. I could not allow this to happen, so when the city turned on Micah, I collected him, Aesila, Sofeir, and Mjoll, and took them with me. They would have died otherwise.”

“So you saved them.”

“Yes.”

“From a trouble of your own making.”

“I…” Cendrick wilted. “I can’t deny that. But I will say that my orders changed to be more aggressive than I found fit- I was not allowed to simply take the amulet. The… leader of Shadowside wanted me to increase our – _their_ influence there, perhaps to the point where the inhabitants of Corrix were capable of spaceflight and interplanetary trading.”

“He intended to end the experiment.”

At the word ‘experiment,’ Aesila’s head snapped up. She stared intently at Captain Iusyf, eyes narrowed slightly.

“Yes.” Cendrick paused. There was a heavy silence.

“If it’s the experiment you speak of,” Aesila said, and stopped. Everyone looked over at her. She glanced around, adjusting her hold on Sofeir, and stared again.

“I have read much over the last night on the nature of Corrix,” she said. “And it is not pleasing. I do not like that the people- my people- are being lied to, used as tools or toys for the greater amusement or education of the greater universe. I cannot imagine that everyone was in favor of this… arrangement.”

“They were not,” Cendrick murmured. Captain Iusyf had no comment, as she didn’t understand what Aesila was saying.

“So I have decided something.” Aesila paused, then switched languages to the galactic standard. “If it is allowed of us, Micah and I would stay in this place, in…” she paused, frowning. “In Iri- Iridere. Micah and I would stay in this place and try to end this foul experiment.”

Cendrick was impressed that she had taken the time to translate a dramatic one-sentence speech, complete with adjectives like ‘foul.’

Captain Iusyf glanced over at Cendrick, eyebrows raised. “You said they only spoke English.”

“They do,” Cendrick answered. “Well, as of last night, they did. Her Majesty is a swift learner, and extremely intelligent.”

“So I see,” the captain murmured, turning her gaze back to Aesila. “But what is most important is her desire. She wants to stay in Iridere and do… what, exactly?”

“What did you mean by ‘end the experiment?’” Cendrick asked Aesila, in English.

She put her shoulders back, taking a proud, determined position. “Micah and I wish to see our people raised to the level of the rest of the galaxy,” she said. “We discussed it. Many have died of disease and starvation, but if what I read of the galaxy is true, then that does not occur elsewhere.”

“There are diseases still, but most are not dangerous, as we can treat them.”

“My people can die from a single small wound. That would not happen in the galaxy.” Aesila’s eyes burned, with fire, with fury, with the anger of someone who has been betrayed. “We have died by the thousands from plagues that could have been cured. But they- the, the watchers, they only looked on and saw us fall. They did not help. They could have prevented it all.”

The Watch, Cendrick thought. She wasn’t wrong. It was part of the formation of a society, apparently, and couldn’t be tampered with. He turned back to the captain.

“She wants to end it,” he said simply. “She understands what Corrix Watch has done, and doesn’t want them to do it anymore. It’s quite simple, really… She knows it’s unethical, she understands. And she’s only read about it for one night. I believe she could disassemble the laws of Corrix Watch given a week.”

“If she is as skilled as you say she is, I think your Corrix queen would be a superb administrator and diplomat,” Captain Iusyf said.

“She is already,” Cendrick agreed fervently. “Micah is a king, but Aesila is a Queen. She ran Edrelle- Micah was not born into kingship. Aesila was born to be a queen. She will do what is right, and nothing will stop her.”

“You are very eager to help her,” the captain observed, smiling.

Cendrick shrugged. “I was their advisor for most of a year,” he answered, grinning ruefully. “I am devoted to her and Micah.”

“Perhaps you would stay and help them, then.”

“I would.”

“Then has Shadowside won after all?”

The question caught Cendrick by surprise. “Ah- what?”

“Is this your plan?” She eyed him keenly. “Your plan to end the Corrix experiment?”

Cendrick took a few moments to understand. “Oh- _no!_ I am not with Shadowside. They tried to kill me, and the king and queen. No, this was not their plan. They wanted Corrix under Shadowside control; clearly, they failed. I would like to end this experiment legally, if at all possible.”

The captain nodded slowly. “I will bring this up with the Iridere Council,” she began.

“No.” Cendrick shook his head. “Bring it up with an outside government first. The Iridere Council sanctioned the experiment to begin with, and many outside worlds don’t know what’s happening. They just know you can’t go to Corrix, and that’s why most ships stay away from Iridere in general. The Council will try to shut this down if at all possible and keep the experiment going. It is… profitable to do so. We must take it somewhere else and bring it back to Iridere later on.”

“Understood. You may accompany us back to Eira’a if you wish.”

Cendrick paused. “Perhaps… that may be for the best. But we should also go to Earth. They will want to hear of this- and they will sympathize with fellow humans.”

“Of course.” Captain Iusyf smiled at them. “I imagine you will want to keep your ship.”

“If at all possible, yes.”

“The ship is yours, then.”

Cendrick breathed a silent inner sigh of relief. He had suspected that they might take the _Dawn’s Triumph_ from him for her cloaking technology, but as long as she was his, he could give the tech away without losing the ship. This was the only dangerous area where he might lose her, as a prisoner. “And the Watch?”

“The Corrix Watch? They will not be able to fight against the authority of Eira’a and Earth combined.”

“As I had hoped.”

The captain and Cendrick would have continued discussions for much longer, but Mjoll started getting antsy, so they cut it short and returned Cendrick and the royals back to _Ero_ to spend the night aboard their own ship.

And it was _their_ ship now. If the Cyraxis family was staying in Iridere, they would need a ship. Cendrick was happy to offer his. Also, if he was on official business, there was a chance he could get someone else to pay for his ship’s fuel and maintenance.

They stood aboard the _Dawn’s Triumph_, watching crews work on replacing the damaged panels on the ship’s port wing.

“We will be able to free Corrix, correct?” Aesila asked him softly, standing next to him.

“We can hope,” Cendrick answered.

“That is not the answer Micah would want,” Aesila sighed, shaking her head. “He would want certainty. Anything less scares him.”

“Uncertainty is going to be plentiful now that he has entered space,” Cendrick replied. “You’re supposed to help him with that.”

“I cannot be the only one. He looks to you, too.”

“It’s not the same.”

“Isn’t it?”

Cendrick paused, considering.

“You are the one familiar thing he knows of that somehow understands this place. He will rely on you for all knowledge of this place.”

“Teach him to speak galactic standard, and perhaps he’ll be able to learn for himself some of these things he wants to know.” Cendrick was unable to actually translate the words ‘galactic standard’ into English and have them make sense, and was forced to settle for the subpar translation ‘the language of the stars.’

“It’ll take time.”

“Of course it will. But you can do it, right?”

“I can.” Aesila was perfectly confident, a casual assurance for a difficult task. “And he does want to help the people of Corrix. Despite the fact that they tried to kill him. I explained it to him- we think that they were… influenced by the watchers.”

“The Watch,” Cendrick corrected. “They’re a security force.”

“The Watch.” Aesila nodded carefully, tipping her face up. “I have a name for my enemy, then.”

“Be careful using words like enemy.”

“An enemy can be a wild beast or a neighboring kingdom,” Aesila said scathingly. “I know what I say, and I know why I say it.”

Cendrick backed off. “Understood, my lady,” he murmured.

“I suppose you cannot refer to me as that, now,” she sighed.

“It doesn’t matter. I will anyways.” Cendrick had been with them for too long to avoid calling them by their titles now. “You will always be the Queen.”

Aesila allowed a faint smile to play across her face. “Then I cannot stop you, and I will admit that I do not want to. It will be a reminder of kinder times.”

“Kinder times?”

“Simpler. Though I do not regret leaving, or any choice by myself or others that led to our departure. It was simple to be a queen. I did not think so, but compared to this…” she trailed off, looking down with that same smile. “It would have been easier to rule a kingdom than live in this new one.”

“That may be true.” Cendrick glanced up, watching a fyaeiarnae in blue test a panel with a small electronic gun, seeing if it could still resist damage as well as it could before the shot. He found it wanting and called another repair worker over to help remove the panel.

“But we have no choice. And I will take this opportunity.” She paused. Cendrick glanced over to see that her blue eyes were blazing, her brows furrowed, staring at something beyond the walls of the ship and beyond _Ero_. “I will win this fight.”

“It’s a fight, then?”

“Everything can be if you view it a certain way.” Aesila shrugged. “This one is definitely a fight. Micah will help me win it. And you will.”

“Of course, my lady.” Cendrick echoed her smile, bowing to her. “I would be honored to fight by your side.”

“Keep saying things like that, and Micah will be jealous,” Aesila teased, rolling her eyes.

“Never,” Micah said, from the doorway. “I believe we all understand each other.”

There was a moment of silence.

“I believe we do,” Cendrick said slowly. “Micah- are you sure you want to do this?”

“Yes,” he answered, moving forwards. He was holding Sofeir. “They were not my people for long, but they were my people, and it does not matter if they never will be again. I still care for them. Anyone who would not… is a fool.”

Cendrick nodded. He turned and put one hand on Aesila’s shoulder and one on Micah’s. “Then I suggest that you commandeer one of the large passenger cabins and sleep,” he told them both, firmly. “We have much to do.”


	37. Snowblind: Recovery

There were no storms coming for the next few hours. The sky was bright, still clouded over but bright, dropping the occasional snowflake. Rays of light occasionally broke through the clouds as well, gilding the black and white mountain peaks in gold and making the snow shine bright enough that Orca had to look away.

She was hiding behind the pile of rock and snow that was all that remained of Arkane. Casey was next to her- the area was safe at this point, Epsilon had assured her, and she was certain that they had to hide from the ship.

The ship.

She was almost completely sure that the ship was Shadowside. That it had crashed was odd, but hey, maybe the Shadowside pilots sucked. And if it _was_ Shadowside, it was here for the eggs. And she wasn’t giving them up. Not after Hibernia and Samath had dragged them out of that disastrous cave-in to her.

Orca glanced up. Both of Arkane’s stormfliers were sitting silently on top of the pile, mottled bodies camouflaged. They’d settled there as soon as the area had calmed down.

That was half an hour ago.

Orca and Casey were simply hiding behind this snow pile, unsure of what to do. They had to take the eggs to Hallowtone- and sure, it was nearby, but Orca didn’t want to leave this place.

Also, the ship might see them if they tried to head up the pathway to Hallowtone. The castle on the glacier was clearly visible now, arches and spires piercing the low clouds. The gray stones seemed more ancient than Orca could fathom.

“Has anyone come out?” Casey asked, from next to Orca.

She slid to the left, turning to face the ship, and put her eye to the scope of her rifle, which she’d extended fully and packed into the snow. The ship was silent. “No,” she answered. “Not that I can see.”

Casey shrank a little bit. Orca glanced over at the box of eggs, sitting in the snow. They really needed to get it to Hallowtone…

“Casey,” Orca said suddenly. “I think that ship is Shadowside-“

“Yeah, you said.”

“-but I don’t know if that’s right. I mean. I’m pretty sure.” Arkane would not have accepted ‘pretty sure’ as good enough. Orca realized that they had been better at not jumping to conclusions than she was. “You’re a techie. Is there any way to figure out what they’re up to? Shadowside goons would’ve come out of the ship to get us by now…”

Casey paused, considering. “I… I could try,” he said after a moment, and held up his datapad. “I, umm… they probably have outgoing signals…”

“Thank you, just do it,” Orca sighed, out of energy to bother listening to what he was saying.

Casey fell silent. Snowflakes continued to occasionally drift out of the sky and land in Orca's hair. She didn’t bother shaking them out.

She took another look through the rifle. The ice that had melted on the ship’s impact had refrozen by this point, even on the outside of the ship itself, which looked pretty wrecked. Orca could spot a couple of big black marks where something had maybe scorched it, and a couple of areas where the outer covering of the ship was twisted and hanging off. Also, one of the wings was further out than the other, and one of the subjets kept sporadically throwing out showers of sparks. That couldn’t be good.

But it was mostly intact. And the people inside… well, she’d seen the flip that ship had done. She’d been close enough to watch the thing go end over end and slam down again. To avoid being killed by that, they had to have been strapped in pretty safely. If they weren’t dead, they were probably alright.

Not that she cared. She was furious at that ship- that ship had killed Arkane. It was that ship that had caused the landslide of rocks and ice that buried their team leader.

So she was definitely feeling more inclined to shoot whoever came out than offer them assistance.

Some of the clouds were breaking up- there wasn’t supposed to be a storm in this area for the next 8 hours. Between the bulky puffs of gray and white, Orca could see a brilliant blue atmosphere.

Now it was pretty. Arkane didn’t get to see it.

That renewed Orca’s animosity towards the ship, which had faded somewhat over the last half hour. She peered through the scope again, and saw no new movement from the ship. They’d have to decide something soon.

“Oh!” Casey exclaimed suddenly, and Orca glanced over in time to see him staring at the datapad in surprise as it produced voices.

“What is it?” she asked, sidling over.

“Shhh,” Casey said, fiddling with some sliders on the pad.

“—and if they don’t find the signal within the next six hours, we’ll launch the beacon.” An authoritative voice, female, confident. Someone in charge.

“Aye aye, Commander,” answered someone else- another female, this one much younger. “The beacon’s still running from here. From what I can read, the battle’s breaking up. _Aphela_ scared most of the ships off, and her fighters are just- er- cleaning up what’s left.” A pause. “That’s what one of the pilots said, I’m not saying that-“

“I get it, Raleigh,” said the first voice, with a touch of humor to it.

“How’s it going?” A third voice, this one male. It sounded as if he were in pain, but hiding it.

“Vari! Get out. You shouldn’t be up here.”

“Kicking me out of my own cockpit, huh? I see how it is. You’ve replaced me.” This one was Vari, then.

“I’m not a replacement-“ said the younger female voice, evidently ‘Raleigh.’

“Shush. No, I need to run some scans on the area.”

“Why?” The commander again.

“I don’t know if you noticed, but we’re on a glacier. That’s bad news. These things have crevasses that could swallow a whole ship if we’re not careful.”

Orca gritted her teeth together. Arkane would have run, save for the crevasse under them.

“So I need to run some scans,” Vari continued. “To make sure we’re not sitting on top of one. And to make sure we don’t run into any when we try to get out of the ship and take a look around. And, Raleigh, while you’re a good pilot, I know how to use the ground scanners.”

“Oh! Right. Of course.” Some scrambling, and a grunt of pain from someone, probably Vari. “Um… do you need help?”

“Not right now,” he muttered. “Later, though? I will. I’ll need a copilot. I’ve got one working arm.” A sigh from him. “I didn’t sign up for this.”

“I can’t believe Misalu let you out of the med bay for this,” the commander muttered.

“Oh, he didn’t,” Vari laughed. “I, ah, left when he wasn’t looking.”

“Really?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Do your scans, and then you’re going back there.”

“So pushy,” Vari muttered. “Alright… Hey, you know what’s funny? I can do this effectively because of that biosurvey equipment that we had installed for the Wenyrev run. So we have Misalu to thank for that.”

“What?”

“He requested the survey be done in the first place,” Vari explained. Orca had no idea who Misalu was, but the name sounded alien. “He told me. Then he changed his mind when Shadowside tried to recruit him, and decided he wanted to be on board to better combat their movements.”

“He told you his whole life story, huh?”

“Not quite.” Vari sounded like he was talking while doing something else; probably running the aforementioned scans. “He told me some stuff, yeah. While checking over this stupid bullet hole again. It’s really just obscene how much this bleeds, I mean it’s only… hold on, that’s odd.”

“What is it?”

“Got no crevasses in the area- well, there’s one, but it’s way over there and it appears to be mostly filled in. I’m also picking up some life signs.”

“Of?”

“A couple of people and… something that doesn’t register.” A pause. “It literally doesn’t register in my database. There’s a creature out there that nobody has ever discovered. Actually, there’s four of them.”

“Well, that’s interesting.”

A couple of people. That dashed the last of Orca’s hopes for Arkane- if a ship’s scanners couldn’t pick anything up, that meant they were gone.

“Okay, so it turns out these people have been sitting there for like maybe thirty minutes,” Vari said nervously. Casey glanced up and met Orca’s eyes, worried. “They… haven’t done anything, though. You think they’re Shadowside?”

“I doubt it,” said the commander.

“They think we’re Shadowside?” Casey asked, baffled. “Well, that means they can’t be. Right?”

Orca admitted it did sound like that was the case.

“Well, maybe we should make contact with them,” came Vari’s voice through the datapad. “They might be able to help us out. ‘Cuz right now, we could use some repairs, and while our engineers are good enough to get us off the ground, A-flight is all we’re going to manage. We need some serious servicing at a port or something before we can head back into space.”

“I don’t know if there are any habitations nearby,” the commander murmured. “So… you’re right. The beacon might not be enough and while our med bay is well equipped, some of our crew could do with a legitimate medical facility.”

“Right. Well… you should do the honors.”

“Oh, so by ‘make contact’ you mean ‘I alone should go out and talk to the potentially dangerous outsiders,’ huh?”

“Yeah, that sounds about right.”

The commander sighed. “I’m not going alone,” she said. “I’ll take Raleigh and Tessana. Don’t worry about backup firepower should things go south. Also, hold the engineering crews from going outside just yet. They can fix the subjets and wings once I’ve made sure these folks mean us no harm.”

“Aye-aye, commander. Uh, be careful about those mystery creatures.”

“I’m not an idiot,” the commander said, sounding affronted. “Raleigh- with me. We need armor.”

“Right.”

A pause, and then the commander’s voice again, this time from something of a distance, barely audible. “And, Vari, go back to the med bay. That’s an order.”

“Damn it,” Vari muttered, the volume of his voice indicating he was very close to whatever was receiving and transmitting all this. “Foiled again.”

There was a lot of shuffling and movement sounds, and then silence.

Casey tapped something, and the audio stopped. “I was listening through a small device in the cockpit,” he explained. “It was kind of not the same as the rest of the ship- I think someone else put it there. But I could use it, so…” he shrugged.

“They’re going to come out and confront us,” Orca said, and then absorbed that. “Oh! Oh no. We should have just left.”

“No, wait.” Casey glanced down at the datapad. “They sounded pretty friendly to me. Maybe we can talk to them or something.”

“About what?” Orca snapped. “I don’t want to talk to them.”

Casey opened his mouth and shut it again, unable to argue with her. “Are we going to keep hiding here?” he asked, instead. “I mean. They know we’re here. It’s not exactly sneaky.”

“We’ll wait until,” she started, and trailed off. If she wanted to skip past the ship and head up the path to Hallowtone, her chance had passed already. “Um.”

“We’re gonna talk to them,” Casey sighed.

“Maybe.”

Silence for a few minutes. Orca accessed Epsilon.

(Have they said anything?) she asked, meaning Hibernia and Samath.

(Nothing,) Epsilon reported.

(Will they always be that way, then? Is that what happens when a stormflier’s person… dies?)

(Uncertain.)

(Oh wait, we’re the first ones with you guys. No one would know. This has never happened before.)

(Yes.)

Orca started to say something else, but Epsilon cut her off. (I cannot imagine their pain.)

A whole five-word sentence from Epsilon? Orca stayed silent, mulling the phrase over. If he said something that long, it was important.

Something caught her attention- the ship’s airlock. It was sliding open. Orca hurried over to the rifle and checked through the scope, which was currently trained on the airlock.

There were three people. The first was a medium-height woman, dark skin and a black braid protruding from beneath her helmet. She was in black environmental armor with red accents. Beside her was a very strange person- she looked almost like she had purple skin. But that was impossible. She appeared to be wearing some kind of armored enviro-suit, with weird armor that was currently retracted in the oddest manner possible for armor.

The last was a short figure in black and green armor, nervously glancing around. This had to be Raleigh, which mean that one of the other two was the commander.

The taller woman cocked her head to the side for a moment, then looked in Orca’s general direction. She pointed and said something to her companions- undoubtedly, this was the commander.

The trio started towards Orca and Casey.

(Get down,) Orca whispered to Epsilon. (And tell Zenith to get down. Tell Hibernia and Samath, too, for all the good it’ll do them.)

(Understood.)

Orca kept peering through the scope, trying to determine when would be too far to warn them off. When she could read the names on the armor with the scope, she decided they had come close enough.

Heaving her rifle out of the snow, Orca clambered up onto the snow and took a kneeling shot position, trying to keep her scope focused on the approaching figures.

The commander stopped, obviously seeing her, and put one hand out to restrain Raleigh from going any further. Orca pulled her face-scarf down and shouted, “Don’t come any nearer!”

A pause. Orca’s voice echoed through the still glacial valley. The trio seemed to be debating something; the gray-armored one moved forwards. She pulled her helmet down somehow and it was now covering her skin- in fact, she seemed to be fully armored now, her skin barely visible. How had she done that?

“We mean you no harm,” the gray-armored woman called, voice clear across the snowfield.

_Tell that to Arkane_, Orca thought bitterly, and tightened her grip on the rifle.

“I said, don’t come any nearer,” Orca repeated, and then realized she had nothing else to say to these people. Why was she averse to being near them? Because they’d inadvertently killed Arkane. But she doubted that it had been on purpose- no one crashed their ship on purpose.

That didn’t change the fact that they’d done it.

The commander grasped the armored woman’s arm and recited something to her. The armored woman listened, nodding, then turned and shouted it to Orca, taking a step forward to do so.

“We are members of the Traders’ Fleet. That is our ship, the _Amelia_. We crashed here after being attacked during the attempted takeover of Xovan Orbital. We are only seeking assistance and will offer what we can to you.”

“Orca,” Casey said, from behind her. “Maybe we should go talk to them. Really.”

Orca paused, fighting with herself, and finally lowered the rifle. “Fine,” she whispered, and collapsed it, returning it to its normal place on her back.

Casey came around the snow pile and stood next to her.

“Stormfliers, stay back,” Orca warned. Epsilon, who was still somewhere else entirely, did not appear. Zenith ducked behind the snow pile.

The ship’s trio drew closer until they were standing within handshake distance.

“Commander Elmina Charis, of the _T.F.S. Amelia_, security branch of the Fleet,” the commander said, extending one gloved hand. Orca hated herself for it, but she took the offered hand.

“Sasinawa Orca,” she said, and lacking anything else to add, said, “…I run protection for couriers.”

“This is Tessana Vivaki, medical specialist, and this is Navigator Raleigh Tereiti, one of our secondaries and copilot of the ship.”

Raleigh glanced over, startled. Orca could read it even through the glass of the helmet.

Casey paused for a moment, then introduced himself. “Uhh… I’m Anatol Casey, courier-in-training.”

Charis glanced between the two of them. “If we have the courier in training and the protector, where is the courier?”

“Dead,” Orca blurted, balling her fists up. “You killed them.”

A moment of silence passed. Charis looked legitimately surprised.

“Um. What?” asked Raleigh, brown eyes wide and a little fearful.

Orca was furious and upset, and she wasn’t going to act polite for this commander. She whirled and pointed at the mound of snow, ice, and rock. “That. _That’s_ where they are. You hit that wall and buried them.”

Another moment of silence. Casey was looking down, chewing on his lower lip.

“I’m sorry,” Charis said after a time. “I was unaware of your presence here. I’m sorry that this happened- a crashing ship does not have very much control.”

Raleigh, meanwhile, was covering her face with her hands. Orca zeroed in on this instantly and stared at her.

“I’m sorry,” Raleigh finally managed, sounding very small indeed. “It’s my fault. I was piloting the ship and hit the rock. I’m so sorry, I didn’t…”

Charis put a hand on Raleigh’s shoulder and glanced back over at Orca. “I am sorry that your teammate was caught in something beyond their skill to deal with. But do not blame it on my ship or my crew. That we happened to hit a rock which caused a terrible accident for your teammate is pure coincidence.”

Orca had nothing to say to this. This woman was much more skilled with words than she was, and Orca suddenly felt very outclassed.

“I will forgive you for drawing a weapon on a security force given your current state,” Charis continued. “Are you hurt? Either of you?”

“Not that I know of,” Casey piped up, answering for Orca. “The, um… we were all free of the snowslide. Well. Except Arkane.” He flinched as he said it.

Charis stared at him for a moment, then sighed. “Come,” she said, extending a hand again, this time with the palm up. “Come aboard our ship. We can help you get to wherever you needed to go. We need to head to a port anyways, and you can easily get a ride from there.”

Orca opened her mouth, perhaps to accept, perhaps to decline. She wasn’t sure which. But Epsilon interrupted her.

(Orca!)

He came whipping down out of the sky and appeared in the air next to her, a near-spherical black ray-like creature the size of a child. Charis whipped out her gun with incredible speed and had it trained on the creature instantly; she pushed Raleigh behind herself in the process, and Tessana stepped forward.

“No no no!” Casey yelped, stepping forward with his hands out.

“What is that?” Charis said evenly, eyes trained on Epsilon.

Zenith followed the larger stormflier, trailing behind him in a wisp of white. Charis flicked her eyes over, unsure of what to do.

“These are ours,” Casey blurted, as if that explained anything. Charis stared at him until he said more. “Um… they’re called stormfliers. They… help us. With things. With messages.”

Silence.

“They’re telepathically linked with us in ways that we do not understand,” he said finally, glancing nervously between Charis, the gun, and Zenith.

“Telepathically linked,” Charis intoned, still staring at Epsilon. He was definitely the largest and most frightening of the stormfliers.

“Yes.”

Orca glanced up, taking over the conversation. “They are an experiment that was designed in a research base pretty far from here. We were tasked with taking a box of the eggs to Hallowtone, which is just up there.”

Casey had gone silent and was frowning at Zenith, who bobbed next to him. They were probably talking.

“The egg box is behind the snow pile,” Orca continued. “We… got trapped in a safehouse by a saber-toothed bear and the eggs warmed up just a little too much. Some of the eggs hatched and, well… this is what we got.”

“So these are not naturally occurring creatures?”

“Right.”

“And they’re completely under your control?”

“Even if they weren’t, they’re not hostile.”

Charis nodded finally and slowly holstered her gun, not taking her eyes off of Epsilon. “Well. I will trust that, then. Do you have identification as stormrunners?”

Orca wilted. “Arkane did,” she mumbled, looking down. “But we- Casey and I- don’t.”

“Hmm.” Charis tilted her head to the side, thinking. “I can’t take your word alone that you’re runners-“

“Well, technically, we’re not. Only Arkane was.”

“Then what are you?”

“I’m… I worked with the mechanics at Tyto Colony,” Orca replied. “And I did things like drive off the occasional rock wyrm or bear, or anything else that might come too close to the colony.”

Another slow nod from Charis. “Security, then. And you? I know are in training. What was your job prior to this?”

Casey didn’t respond. He had glanced sharply up at Zenith and was staring at her, brow furrowed, expression caught somewhere between alarm and surprise. Zenith’s wings were waving more energetically than usual.

Receiving no response, Charis glanced back to Orca, eyebrows slightly raised.

“He works at the post office at Tyto,” Orca supplied. “He’s going to quit that when he takes up official runner training.”

“So I see.” Charis paused. “Well. We can help you get your box to Hallowtone, if that really is it just up there. Do you happen to know if—“

The conversation was again interrupted, this time by Casey, who sat down hard on the snow and started to cry.

“Um,” Orca said, unsure of what to do. Charis looked equally perplexed.

Raleigh, however, stepped timidly forward and knelt next to Casey. “What is it?” she asked, resting one hand on his shoulder.

Casey rubbed one sleeve across his face. When he glanced up, Orca was again confused by his expression- this time his features were suffused with not sorrow, but joy.

“We—we need to, to… we need digging tools.”

-

It took them a full hour to dig Arkane out of the snow and ice. They were shielded by a large slab of rock that had fallen at an angle, preventing them from being crushed- pure dumb luck on their part. Charis got a good look at the runner when one of the crew members called her over. They were lying on their back, wearing a battered white parka with fur in the hood, gold-tinted snow goggles, and a double-canister half-face respirator. As a result their face was almost completely obscured; the only thing Charis could see were strands of white hair poking out from the parka hood. Some of them were stained red with frozen blood.

“I am fine,” they called, as some of the _Amelia_’s crew members cleared snow away from them. Their voice was muffled by the mask, but it seemed like they were used to talking through it. “I am not too badly hurt. I think one of my ankles may be broken, but nothing else.” They had been wearing snowshoes, but the wooden frames were broken and crumpled now. Charis could see that the frame had caught on rock or something coming down, and their ankle was pulled at a disconcerting angle.

So she seriously doubted their assessment of their physical health, but that’s what the doctors were for. Misalu was crouched in the half-tank up the slope from the runner’s position- he’d been messing with the defense turret, which had been used to shoot some of the snow and ice away from Arkane’s position.

“_Arkane!_” screeched the younger runner, Casey, from where he was at the edge of the excavation. He and the other runner, Orca, had been forced to watch the progress of the excavation from a distance.

Arkane struggled somewhat, trying to raise themselves up enough to see where the voice had come from. “Casey?”

“He’s over there,” Charis told them. “He and Orca had to stay away from the excavation area.”

“Of course.” Arkane nodded, then glanced up. “Thank you for not harming my fliers, or my team.”

Charis briefly wondered how they knew. They’d been buried. How…?

“My fliers informed me of all you have done and offered us,” Arkane continued. “I speak for my team when I say we would gladly accept assistance, and give what assistance we can.”

Now _this_ was someone who had a way with words. Charis was impressed. “Well, hold off on that for now. We need to get you out of the snow and checked over first.”

“Of course, Commander.”

And they knew her title! Charis was pleased. She stepped back and let her crew clear out enough snow and rock for them to reach Arkane.

As soon as they could get into the small snow-cave where Arkane was, everyone cleared out and let Misalu through. The fyaeiarnae stepped distastefully through the snow; he didn’t like it.

“Well,” he said after a moment, glancing over Arkane’s body. “We have to ensure that you don’t freeze to death. Ordinarily I don’t like moving injured patients, but you need to be on board the ship.”

Charis nodded sharply. “Organize that in the best way you see fit; this is your area of expertise.”

Tessana stepped forward. “I will help,” she stated. Not a question or a request. Misalu nodded and did not argue. The two of them produced a stretcher from the ship and started getting Arkane out of the snow.

Orca and Casey needed informing. Charis headed over to them. Raleigh had been assigned to keep the two of them calm and occupied while the crew cleared out the snow. She saw Charis coming and tapped on Casey’s shoulder- the boy was currently talking animatedly, describing something spherical.

“Hello,” Charis called, when she was close enough. “Your friend is alright.”

“That we knew,” Orca snapped back. “Tell us something new.”

“They’ve got at least a broken ankle, head trauma, and probably some other broken bones. My doctors are going to get them on board our ship for more advanced medical treatment.”

Orca opened her mouth to object, but Charis cut her off. “We are _not_ going to attempt to treat broken bones with first aid in the middle of a glacier. They are coming on board our ship and that is final. From there, we will take you where you need to go.” She paused. “Besides. Aren’t there storms coming?”

Casey immediately glanced down at the slick datapad-like machine on his arm. “She’s right,” he murmured to Orca, nudging her with his elbow. “Only a few hours now and one will hit. We should get to safety. If we can’t go to Hallowtone, we need to get on the ship.”

After a few moments, Orca deflated slightly. “Alright,” she mumbled, looking down. “But what about the eggs?”

Charis considered the small box that was sitting in the snow next to Orca. “They need to be cold, right? What temperature?”

Orca and Casey glanced at each other, then back to Charis. “We have no idea,” Casey admitted, staring past Charis at the snow. “We never asked, and they were alright out in the cold outside the buildings.”

“Would they know?” Charis glanced up at the black stormflier.

Casey snorted. “Oh, geez, no,” he said, grinning. “They don’t know facts like that. Only the scientists at Ceos would know something like the exact degrees…. And we didn’t have time to ask them when we were there. They’re, um, under control of Shadowside.”

“Casey!” Orca whacked him in the side with her arm and he jumped with a squeak.

Charis chuckled. “It’s alright,” she said, holding up a hand. “It doesn’t matter to us if Shadowside is chasing you. They aren’t anymore; the fyaeiarnae military scared them off.”

“Off Xovan’s surface? I doubt it,” Orca growled. “They’ve been on our tails for weeks now.”

“Hmm.” Charis paused, brows furrowed. True, the space battle was cooling off and the ships were mostly gone. But if Shadowside had been on this runner team for so long, they probably weren’t directly linked to the ships that had invaded Xovan Orbital, meaning that they probably hadn’t been withdrawn. “Well, you’ll certainly be safer on board the _Amelia_ than you would be out here alone.”

“I agree,” Casey said, glancing nervously over at Orca. “Like… we might not like them, Orca- well, you might not- but… we have to go with them. It’s safer. Also, it’s dumb to just stay out here, and we’re not going to Hallowtone without Arkane.”

Orca held up her hands. “Fine! Fine. We go with them.”

Charis smiled. “Welcome aboard, then,” she said. “Follow me.”

She turned and trudged towards the ship without looking back.

Even lying tilted on the glacier, wings half out and hull surface charred and scraped, the _Amelia_ was still magnificent. She retained a kind of sleek dignity even while sitting in snow and refrozen ice. Charis didn’t check to see if Arkane’s teammates were following her, just led them to the door.

They had followed. Charis paused outside and glanced up at the stormfliers. “Will they be alright out here?”

“Probably,” said Casey, and glanced up at his flier. After a few moments of silence, he nodded. “They’ll be alright.”

“Good. I don’t want to try deconning them and accidentally damage them. Not until we can run a scan on their systems and determine a safe way to bring them on board.”

She brought them in through the airlock and had them take off most of their bulky outerwear. “We’ll decon it,” she said, removing her own armor. “Don’t worry. It won’t be harmed.”

Orca was loathe to part with hear weapons and coat, but did anyways. Casey was a scrawny little thing outside his leopard-fur suit; since it was fitted, he didn’t have ‘normal’ clothing underneath it, just something that resembled a skintight black jumpsuit. Charis made a mental note to get his gear decontaminated first so that he could put something warmer on.

“Wow,” he said, glancing around the ship as they left the airlock and Charis led them onto the bridge. “This is… really something!”

“This is the _Amelia_,” Charis said proudly. “That’s the bridge. I’d stay off there unless you’re called up; don’t get in the way of the secondaries when they’re working, or in Vari’s way.”

“He’s your pilot, right? He seemed pretty nice,” Casey said, frowning. “Would he really get mad if we were up there?”

Charis glanced sharply over at him. “You’ve never met Vari,” she murmured, narrowing her eyes. “How do you know who he is?”

Casey colored abruptly and glanced over to Orca, who crossed her arms and tossed her head back. “Don’t look at me. You’re the one who did it.”

Charis stared at him. He sighed and said, “Thanks, Orca. I was gonna say Raleigh told me about him, but… sorry, Commander, I, uh, eavesdropped on your ship and heard you talking before you came out to talk to us.”

“How?”

“There’s…. um, there’s a device in the cockpit that isn’t the same as the rest of the ship’s tech and I could access it…? The signal was open, it wasn’t even heavily encrypted or anything. I don’t know who put it there.”

Charis stared at him for another second, then shook her head. “It has to be something of Vari’s,” she muttered, beckoning the two to follow her. “He probably knows about it.”

“Knows about what?” said Vari, passing her in the hallway.

“Vari, _stop that_. I sent you to the med bay for a _reason_.”

“But there’s newcomers! I have to make sure they don’t-“

_“Med bay._”

Disgusted, Vari did an about-face and headed back the way he had come. Charis watched Casey’s eyes widen as he spotted the fresh bandages on Vari’s arm and side.

Vari also noticed this. “I got shot,” he said, with a hint of pride. “During the battle. That’s part of the reason we crashed.”

“Oh,” Casey said, fiddling with his shirtsleeves. “That’s not good.”

“Nah. But I’m alright.”

“You are _not_,” Charis countered, narrowing her eyes at him. “How many times have you escaped the med bay now?”

Vari tilted his face up and said nothing.

“I’m having Misalu watch you.”

“He already does. Just not closely enough.”

Charis shook her head with a sigh. “If I have to make him program that door not to let you out, I will.”

“Aw, c’mon, Commander. You know we’re not going anywhere without me; you’d have to let me out eventually.”

“I don’t know,” Charis mused. “Raleigh was pretty good with the ship. She might be able to get us up in the air without your help.”

Vari used the arm that wasn’t in a sling to clutch the left side of his chest and stagger dramatically. “Elmina! That hurts! I thought I was _useful_ around here…”

Charis snorted. “Back to the med bay, or I _will_ have Raleigh fly the ship, and you’ll be relegated to copilot.”

“God damn it, this is my ship,” Vari muttered.

“Go to the med bay to keep it that way,” Charis fired back.

Vari stumped off ahead of them, grumbling to himself. Charis watched him go with a faint smile; of course they weren’t going anywhere without him at the helm. Raleigh could probably do it, but Charis wouldn’t push her to. They were fine where they were.

“Oh, damn,” Charis realized, after a moment. “I could have asked him about that device you listened through and I didn’t. I’ll have to do it later.”

Orca and Casey stayed silent. Charis shook her head and led them deeper into the ship, past the crew quarters, mess hall, and med bay.

“That where Arkane is?” Orca asked, glancing over at the med bay. Vari was standing at the door, waiting impatiently.

The door opened. “You _delinquent_,” Misalu shouted from inside. “You are _not_ supposed to be off causing trouble while I am trying to work. I am occupied, and I cannot keep an eye on you. Stay in one place!”

“Sorry,” Vari called, wincing, and the door slid shut behind him.

“Yeah,” Charis answered Orca, nodding. “Tessana and Misalu are taking care of them. They’ll be able to help them, don’t worry. We’ve got a pretty advanced med bay. I mean… ideally we would take them to a real hospital, but there’s not one around, unless that place up on the glacier has a medical facility better than ours.”

“The place on the hill.” Casey paused, frowning. “Hallowtone?”

“I’ve heard you refer to that before. Is that what it’s called? Dramatic.”

“It’s a research facility,” Orca explained. “Arkane knows the most about it.”

“We’ll have to ask them, then.”

There was a commotion from the rear of the ship. Charis squinted at it, then held out her arms and pushed Casey and Orca to the side. “Out of the way,” she said, stepping aside herself.

Some of the crew members were hauling Phrell up out of the lower areas towards the med bay, which was extremely hard to do given that the vikyrelle was the size of a small horse and unconscious, and they were trying to push xir up the ladder. They’d hastily constructed a sort of sling and were using it to carry xir around.

“What the hell is that?” Orca said aloud, staring at the bundle of vibrant purple feathers.

“That’s Phrell,” Charis told her, also watching. “Xi was injured during the battle as well. We think it was Dewbud.”

“Dewbud?” Casey was also watching the progress with a sort of horrified awe.

“Another alien. A saboteur,” Charis clarified, narrowing her eyes out of habit. “He shot Vari and we think he did a significant amount of damage to the engines. Phrell stopped him from most of it, but was hurt in the process.”

“Oh.”

The crew members managed to get Phrell out of the lower hold and carry xir to the med bay. Xi wasn’t awake; xir long, fluffy tail hung out of the sling and trailed on the floor.

Charis caught one of the accompanying crew members by the shoulder. “Who’s down in the engine room?” she asked.

“Elliot, ma’am, and the khavvichthi.” He looked embarrassed, and didn’t even try to pronounce Kthy’s name. “And some of our guys.”

“Kthy _is_ one of ‘our guys,’” Charis sighed, and shook her head. “Thank you.”

The crew member nodded and hurried to catch up to the others.

“What is that? I mean, I know you said it had a name, but what _is_ it?” Orca asked, fascinated by the retreating shape of Phrell.

“A vikyrelle. I’m guessing you’ve never encountered one before?”

Orca shook her head.

“Phrell is much more impressive when xi’s standing up,” Charis sighed. “And awake.”

“I’ll bet.”

“Is xi naturally purple?” Casey asked.

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“It has something to do with where vikyrelle are from,” Charis answered, leading the two runners down the ladder towards the engine room. “Not the tree parts of Thell Vyrn, but the canyonlands.”

Casey was fascinated. Orca seemed nervous. “Is xi dangerous?” she asked.

“Not to us.”

“Oh. Good.”

They reached the engine room proper and Charis led them towards where she’d seen most of the damage done. There were still a few shimmering violet feathers scattered about, some lying on the floor and a few caught in machinery or grating where Phrell had violently collided with something. There were also spatters of bright red blood from Phrell’s facial wound and xir shattered hand. Charis picked her way around them and found Elliot and Kthfthkthir at some of the more damaged engine consoles.

“Hello,” Charis called to them, when she was close enough. Kthfthkthir turned around and tapped out a greeting on his datapad.

“Holy shit,” Orca said, staring at him.

“I see you are the newcomers?” Kthfthkthir asked, turning his head slightly to the side. “Welcome. The Chief Engineer and I are trying to repair the engines.”

“I can help,” Casey said unexpectedly. “I’m good with electronics.”

“Are you now?” Charis said, suddenly very interested. “Elliot?”

“We need all the help we can get,” Chief Engineer Elliot admitted, not looking away from the console he was working at. “That nyphelim did some serious damage. He knew what he was doing. Also, he linked the jammer into our own power, and while Dr. Anulohr may have quarantined the signal, we still need to cut it out of the system. We’ll need to shut the ship down totally for that.”

Casey seemed excited about the prospect. “I’ll help.”

“Have you worked on ship systems before?”

“No, but I’m a quick learner.” He bounced on the balls of his feet. “You’ll see.”

Elliot sighed. “Alright,” he said. “Don’t break anything.”

“I won’t, sir.”

Kthfthkthir tapped something else out. “I would be glad to work with you,” the datapad said, and Kthy bowed his head to Casey.

“I’m honored,” Casey replied, amazed by this strange chitinous alien. “Who are you?”

“I’m Kthfthkthir.” The datapad managed the strange name with surprising smoothness. “Most of the crew call me Kthy; you may do that if you so desire. It’s easier for them.”

“I’m Anatol Casey,” Casey said. “Wow! This is really cool.”

Orca folded her arms. “Well, I’m glad you’re having a field day.”

Casey gasped. “Oh! Oh no. I’m so sorry. Commander, what can Orca do? I mean. We have to do stuff to help you guys, right?”

Charis paused, thinking. A security guard? A bodyguard for Arkane. What _could_ she do? She didn’t want the girl to feel useless here; perhaps use her natural talents and familiarity with the environment to their advantage?

“Run recon for those Shadowside forces,” she said after a moment. “And keep natural dangers away from the ship. I’m certain there’s animals here we don’t know about that could harm us, and the _Amelia_ doesn’t have guns.”

Orca nodded. “Got it,” she said, and seemed relieved.

There was a moment, and then Charis nodded sharply. “Alright. Casey, stay here and assist Chief Engineer Elliot. Orca, I want you to meet with the ship guards and integrate into their routines; I’ll send you specialized orders later. We’ll do our best to help Arkane and get the three of you to Hallowtone in time. As for the eggs…” she paused. They’d left the eggs in a snowdrift just outside the _Amelia_’s airlock. “They are alright where they are for the time being, but I’d like to get them in a safer location.”

“We can do that later,” Casey said, already closely watching what Elliot and Kthfthkthir were doing. Orca had already nodded her head and started back the way they’d come, glad to be doing something. “Zenith says they’re okay right now. She’s watching them.”

Oh, right, the stormfliers. Charis shook her head. Crazy.

But there were always strange things to see in the galaxy.

-

Arkane’s injuries were, by yet another stroke of luck, not that bad. They had a few broken bones, the worst being the ankle, and a concussion, but were otherwise fine. They were mostly concerned about the wellbeing of their team, their mission, and their stormfliers.

The commander let their stormfliers in after they’d been scanned by the ship systems so the decontamination process wouldn’t hurt them. Arkane had overheard the scientists saying the fliers were oddly similar to fyaeiarnae ship technology.

“Yes,” Arkane had called to them. “They were built after it.”

“And they were designed where?”

“Ceos Research Base.”

The doctors, both fyaeiarnae, exchanged a look. “Not sure the homeworld’s going to like that,” the man said- Dr. Anulohr. Misalu.

“I think perhaps not,” the other replied- that one was Dr. Tessana Vivaki. She seemed kinder, but less personal. Brusque.

“Should we even bring it up to them?” Misalu asked. He was checking on a rapidly healing fracture in Arkane’s arm while Tessana was rebinding the bandages on the face of the vikyrelle who’d been cut. “I mean. We don’t need to.”

Tessana gave him a sharp glance. “Excuse me?”

“It’s not our place to know what these things are,” Misalu murmured, concentrating on Arkane’s arm. “We do not have to report this.”

Tessana opened her mouth, then closed it again.

Phrell glared at Misalu from xir place on the table. From what Arkane had gathered, Phrell was not pleased with him, but had no reason to be. Xi was just angry in general, it seemed.

“Please relax your facial features so that I can bind this wound properly,” Tessana said to Phrell, patiently. The vikyrelle did as asked, but wasn’t happy about it. The vikyrelle, at the moment, couldn’t walk. Arkane wasn’t sure why, but it had something to do with one of xir hands.

“Your fractures are healing well,” Misalu reported, after pulling away one of the many indescribable instruments with uncertain purposes that Arkane could see littering the med bay. “When are you having this… audience, is it? With Hallowtone?”

“Tomorrow,” Arkane reported. It felt so strange- tomorrow they’d be escorted up to Hallowtone, they and their team, to finally complete their mission. It felt strange, unreal- unexpected.

Runs weren’t normally like this. But then again, this hadn’t exactly been a normal run. Normal runs didn’t have-

(Us!) Hibernia shouted, next to Arkane. They jumped slightly, surprised, but turned to her with a smile.

(That’s true,) Arkane told her, reaching up with their free hand to stroke her dappled skin. (But all my runs will have you from now on.)

(Hooray!)

Misalu glanced from Arkane to the flier and back, eyebrows raised. “Interesting,” he said, and made no further comment.

The journey from the _Amelia_ to Hallowtone itself was uneventful. The castle… was something else entirely.

That gray stone spire rising above the glacier had only been a glimpse of the base itself; the thing seemed to have been taken directly from a movie. There were even arcing bridges running between some of the towers, spanning drops of seventy meters or more. The place was massive. Arkane tried not to be intimidated by its sheer size as they found their way to what seemed like an entryway.

Arkane, Orca, and Casey were accompanied by their stormfliers and Commander Charis, along with a couple of security guards from the ship. They were wearing enviro-suits; Arkane’s team simply had their normal gear.

It was snowing. The wind had picked up, but there were no storms coming for the next few hours. Arkane briefly remembered the crew of the _Amelia_ being shocked when a storm hit the ship the first time; some of them had clutched the walls, looking up and around, terrified by the screaming wind and the movement of the ship as it was battered by the blizzard.

“Don’t worry,” Arkane had said to them. “It’ll pass.”

“You go _through_ this? You _walk around_ in this?”

“Ideally, no.”

Arkane shook themselves out of the memory as they approached a paved path rising out of the ice. It led under an archway and through what looked like some kind of courtyard, though most of the plants were shrouded in snow and any pathways through the shrubbery were buried. The main path was visible; that was what mattered.

They passed silently through the courtyard. The stormfliers ached to dart around and look at everything, but Arkane’s team kept them in check.

There was a sort of hallway leading to the door, keeping the door safe from snow and ice. The stone floor within the hallway was clear; there was an ordinary-sized door set in the stone here, made of metal. Arkane glanced around for some kind of signal and had to settle for knocking when they couldn’t find one.

A few moments passed.

“Do you think they’re home?” Casey asked, then said, “I don’t know why I asked that. That was a silly thing to say.”

The moments stretched into minutes. Arkane grew slightly uncomfortable in the shadow of this looming monastery.

Just when they were considering turning back to the ship, footsteps echoed on the other side of the door. “One moment!” called someone from the other side. “Just a moment! We weren’t expecting anyone. Hold on. Is it storming? No, I didn’t think so.” There were a few clicks and a grating noise and- to everyone’s surprise- the door slid directly upwards, into the wall.

“Interesting,” Orca said flatly.

On the other side stood a young man who looked like he’d only woken up an hour ago or so. He was wearing a long-sleeved green sweater and brown pants, and comfortable-looking brown shoes. As he surveyed the team, he scrubbed one side of his face with one long sweater sleeve, nearly knocking off his pair of wire-rimmed glasses. “Sorry! Who are you?”

“I’m Navara Arkane,” Arkane said, taking the lead. “I have a delivery from Ceos Research Base. We were instructed to-“

“_What is that?!_” The scientist interrupted Arkane, astonished, and stared directly at Hibernia. “Oh my god! What is that? It’s incredible! I’ve never seen anything like it! Please. What is that?”

He certainly was enthusiastic, Arkane thought, reconsidering their words. “This- ah- this is… may we come in? We’ll need a freezer brought immediately, a small one. Handheld is fine.”

“You’re from Ceos, you said?”

“Yes.”

“Hmm. Credentials?”

Arkane tapped their datapad. They’d pulled up their runner certification earlier and had it ready- to prove it, they pulled their mask down and lifted their goggles so the scientist could get a good look at their face. “Here. I am who I say I am.”

The scientist stepped out into the cold to get a better look at the datapad. Snowflakes caught in his messy reddish-brown hair. “Very good, very good,” he muttered, and stood back. Arkane and their team hurried through the door; the _Amelia_ guards followed less assuredly.

Once they were all through, the door grated shut behind them. Arkane blinked in the sudden darkness; Casey pulled his own goggles off, trying to see. The dazzling snow outside had left them mostly blind to the stone interior of Hallowtone.

“Oh! Sorry!” The scientist gasped, seeing their discomfort. “One moment.” He fiddled with some switches on the wall, and dim yellow lights flickered to life in the hallway.

This place seemed… old, and a little run down, Arkane observed. It was strange. They’d expected it to be newer, somehow.

“There’s a cloakroom to the left,” the scientist told them breathlessly. “You can leave your coats there. I’ll call for the freezer.” He disappeared down the hallway, leaving Arkane and their team to enter the cloakroom and leave their outerwear there.

“Well, that was weird,” Casey stated after a few moments of silence.

Orca was unwrapping her scarf. “Sure was,” she muttered. “Not sure I trust that little man.”

“He didn’t seem shady to me or anything.”

“You can’t trust anyone.”

Casey rolled his eyes. “He’s harmless, probably.”

“And if he’s not?”

“Well….” Casey glanced over at the _Amelia_ guards. The two looked at each other worriedly.

The young scientist returned swiftly with a small blue box with a white handle. “Here you go,” he said, plunking the thing on the floor. He seemed quite out of breath. “For- um- whatever it is you need to put in there.”

Arkane was carrying the egg box. They pulled it off their back, weighing it in their hands- this small brown box had been the cause of so many troubles, so many trials and tribulations.

They placed the box in the freezer and closed the lid.

“I’ll carry it,” they said, as the scientist moved forward.

He backed up with his hands raised. “Of course! Courier.”

The group proceeded through Hallowtone, through dark stone hallways and even through a large, great-hall like room that almost seemed like a throne room. Arkane wondered why this building had originally been built. It did _not_ seem like it had originally been a research base.

Finally, the scientist led them to another door, this one wooden. It simply opened outwards like a normal door.

On the other side, bright light and a large, well-lit break room. Several people were sitting on couches around a low table, playing some sort of board game. One wall was taken up by a large window looking out into another snow-covered courtyard. There was a kitchenette against one wall, complete with a stove and an oven. It seemed totally out of place in the otherwise dire castle.

“Here they are!” The young scientist announced cheerfully.

The scientists looked up. One of them was a nyphelim and two were fyaeiarnae, Arkane noticed, but the rest were human.

“Huh,” one of the humans said- a tall, dark-skinned woman with black hair wound around her head in a crown of braids. Her eyes rested immediately on the cooler Arkane was carrying. “That the shipment?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Arkane’s young guide said.

“Spencer, you’ve done well. Let us speak with them now.”

“Oh! Right. Okay. I’ll- gotcha.” Spencer glanced back and forth, then scooted through Arkane’s team and left the room behind.

“Forgive him,” the woman said, standing up and heading over to Arkane’s team. “He’s new here, and he really likes science.”

“Which is totally understandable,” Casey piped up. “I get that.”

The woman smiled. “I’m Tashaya Ember, one of the chief research specialists at Hallowtone. I assume you’re Navara Arkane?”

“That’s correct,” Arkane said, and felt compelled to bow to this woman. They compromised with their own mind and gave her a half bow, dipping their head.

“What have you brought us? And when you’ve told me that, explain these strange creatures that you have with you. Spencer seemed amazed by them.”

“Ceos Research Base was working on a message-carrying creature,” Arkane explained. “They were, however, pressured by Shadowside to give up their prototypes. They sent my team and I to take the prototypes and bring them here.” They held up the freezer. “Here are most of the prototypes. During the journey, some of them hatched. Those are what you see here.”

“_Very_ interesting,” Tashaya murmured, eyes on Epsilon. Orca glanced nervously up at him and back to the scientist. “Explain these creatures more.”

“We call them stormfliers,” Arkane said, obliging. “Each flier is telepathically linked to one handler. They will only speak to their handler, and their handler alone. And each other.”

“There are four here, and three of you.”

“I have been charged with two of them. Oh- They are intelligent creatures. You must understand- the eggs in this box, they are fully-formed fliers. They are not embryos. They are ready to hatch at any given moment. If you intend to hurt these creatures, I will do my best to keep them from your hands.”

Tashaya raised her eyebrows, staring up at Arkane, startled by their sudden intensity. “What makes you think we’d hurt them?”

“Rumor and conjecture,” Arkane admitted. “And Hallowtone’s containment policies.”

“The ice charges? Goodness, no. We wouldn’t use one of those rooms for these.” She let her gaze travel back to the stormfliers. “They clearly aren’t aggressive.”

“They are entirely harmless,” Arkane said. They weren’t sure why they were being so intense. “You must not hurt them.”

“My dear courier, we have no intention of harming them,” Tashaya replied. “You must have heard terrible things indeed about us to be this worried.”

“No, but we know more about these creatures than anyone. We don’t wish to see them harmed. They are smart- as intelligent as us, certainly.”

“Oh?”

“They speak in words, in fully formed sentences, they know who they are. They are sentient. The eggs in this box are also sentient. If warmed even slightly, they will hatch and bond to the first person they really see. They immediately speak in sentences.” Arkane paused. “We… have been feeding them dried fish, by the way.”

Tashaya seemed amused by all this. “Well. Arkane, if you do in fact know so much about these creatures, we invite you to stay here for a time and assist us in researching them. Your entire team may stay, actually.”

Orca’s eyebrows shot up and she glanced over at Arkane. “Ark? We doing this?”

Arkane paused, considering. They could see no harm in it, and it would be the best way to ensure that no stormfliers were mistreated. Besides, if their own fliers sensed danger, they could vanish into Xovan’s wilderness in the blink of an eye. “Alright,” they agreed. “We will stay with you.”

They handed the freezer over; they felt a kind of sadness, and relief, as the handle passed from their hands into Tashaya’s. She held it for a moment, judging its weight, before turning to another one of the scientists, who was waiting to the side of the conversation. “Send these to Zfskhzffsz in Lab 448. She’ll be highly interested in them.”

“One thing, though,” Casey piped up.

Tashaya glanced over to him again. “Yes?”

“Can you fix a starship?”

-

Xovan’s mountains and glaciers dwindled beneath the _Amelia_’s engines. Raleigh felt a stab of longing- it had been beautiful, and she’d been briefly interested in the floating companions that Arkane and their team had been accompanied by.

But there was no place for stormfliers aboard a starship such as this one. This one would go far further than the fliers would like going, and they’d be confined here within its metal walls. No, they did not belong here.

Charis leaned on Raleigh’s chair. “Everything going well?”

“Yes, it is,” Raleigh replied, sitting back. “The Hallowtone guys were right about their autorepair facilities- The _Amelia_’s never flown so nicely. I think they might have _improved_ her, to be honest. And Casey was really helpful with the engine repair.”

“Well, lucky for us, then.” Charis paused. “Do you think we’ll have to add that to the reports?”

“Oh, no, I hope not,” Raleigh laughed. “Those were awful…!”

Charis nodded. “A real pain,” she sighed. “Every time something happens I have to make reports. Normally I take care of it, but you had to help out this time.”

“Geez. Maybe I should just stay in my secondary station next time instead of getting involved. Less paperwork that way.”

“You could do that… but that’s also less fun,” Charis replied, grinning at her.

“I guess it’s more paperwork in my future, then.”

Xovan’s dappled surface faded to monotone bright white, just the reflection of snow through the atmosphere.

As the _Amelia_ swept towards the edge of Iridere, Raleigh got a good look at some of the fyaeiarnae ships that were still in the area. _Aphela_ had long since left, but a couple of carriers were around.

She peered more closely at one of them. There was a human-made ship in that cluster, there, and it looked familiar…

“Hey, Vari,” she called, through the comms. “That ship there. Haven’t we seen that before?”

There was a pause from Vari as he pinpointed the ship Raleigh was talking about. “Huh,” he called back, sounding legitimately surprised. “So we have. That’s the one that shot us and then ran away when you deflected it.” He laughed. “As I recall, he just wanted out of the system. So much for that.”

“Oops. Well, maybe it stayed for a reason.” Charis paused. “He’s the one that tipped us off, isn’t he?”

“Cendrick of Corrix of Shadowside? Yeah, that’s him. Poor guy.” Vari shrugged. “Whatever he wanted, he’s here now and he’s staying.”

“But we’re not,” Charis chimed in. “We’ve got other things to do.”

“Right.” Vari cleared his throat and flicked on the shipwide comms. “Alright, crew! Say your goodbyes to Iridere, because we’re heading out. We’re clear of Xovan so we’re engaging FTL in just a few moments.”

“Are we ever gonna come back here?” Raleigh asked Charis quietly, hands hovering over her console.

“Maybe. Depends on what the Fleet has in store for us.”

The _Amelia_ drifted for a few moments while Vari cut the engines.

“Disengaging normal core,” he called. There were a few seconds- twelve, to be exact- while the disengage procedures affirmed that nothing had gone wrong, and authorized the re-connect to the FTL core.

“Clear,” Raleigh murmured, searching the area around them. Space was clear; there were no hidden ships, no secret ghosts trailing them.

“Connecting to FTL core.”

The _Amelia_ shuddered slightly as the core locked into place and the engines powered up again. Raleigh heard that upscaling whine again and smiled; despite her sadness at leaving Iridere behind, it would always be worth it to go somewhere new. And wherever they went, she would always be in the same familiar place with the same people- the crew that she knew and loved.

“Forward, my friends,” Vari called, and Charis laughed behind Raleigh, a low rich sound. Raleigh splayed her fingers over the holocontrols and waited.

“Engaging.”


End file.
